The new material received from the Imperial Bureau of Entomology through the kindness of the Director, Dr. G. A. K. Marshall, enables me to prepare this third paper on the Ethiopian fruit-flies. It is a proof of the great richness of the African Trypaneid fauna that of over 41 species received only 10 were referable to previously described species, and that no less than 8 new genera have been erected, most of them for very strikingly characterised forms.

Dr. Guy A. K. Marshall has recently submitted to me a Trypaneid, discovered in Northern Australia by Mr. G. F. Hill. The fly is said to have been bred from larvae having habits very different from those of the related members of the family; and being moreover interesting from a morphological and biogeographical standpoint, it forms the object of the present note.

Scale of adult ♀ about 2 mm. long, moderately broadened behind, convex, usually curved, white, not glossy, but with ± conspicuous growth-lines; exuviae orange-brown to dark brown. The colour of the second exuviae is only slightly obscured by a faint secretionary covering.

These studies were made in Uganda on the islands and shores of Victoria Nyanza, in territory which had been depopulated some years before on account of tsetse-fly and sleeping sickness. They were begun in October 1913, and extended over two full years, of which eighteen months were spent in the fly belt on Victoria Nyanza, and three months on a tour into Bunyoro, where for the time being (the spring of 1914) Glossina morsitans was the centre of greater attraction as a possible vector of human trypanosomiasis. Seven tours were made from headquarters at Entebbe—the shortest, of three days only, being interrupted by the War, and the longest, of eight full months, being much prolonged by the War.

The following undescribed species of Curculionidae were all forwarded to the Imperial Bureau of Entomology from the Division of Entomology, Pretoria, with the information that they were attacking various cultivated plants.

In the course of a conversation in November 1917, Mr. E. Hutchins, the Chief Veterinary Officer, Uganda Protectorate, drew my attention to an outbreak of rinderpest in the Northern Province of the Protectorate, which first manifested itself in the buffalo of the Chopi Country. The disease was then rapidly spreading through the game in the Glossina morsitans area between Masindi Station and the Kafu River. He pointed out the excellence of the opportunity for investigating the alleged relationship between rinderpest and fly. As I had worked from May till September 1914 in the Northern Province fly belt in association with Mr. W. F. Fiske, I was in a particularly advantageous position to estimate any alteration in the fly distribution which might have occurred as a result of the epidemic. The question had a special local significance, as, should the disease prove fatal to the fly, the introduction of rinderpest among the situtunga on the Islands of Lake Victoria would simultaneously remove the reservoir and the carrier of the mammalian trypanosomes. My release from military duties was duly sanctioned in November 1917, but unfortunate circumstances over which I had no control postponed its fulfilment until April 1918. By this time the disease had almost worked itself out in the fly area, and, what is more to be regretted, the long-deferred rains had commenced throughout the district. The heart of a unique opportunity was thus lost.

The salient points in Pallas's brief description are as follows:—“Cinereus … Frons hirtella. Antennae triarticulatae; extremum trinode, basis vero pilis nigris subpennata. Palmi [? palpi] nulli: ensis nudus … basi pilosus. Pedes longissimi, grisei, posticis corporis fere tripla longitudine, praesertim tarsi, elongati. Alae lanceolatae, cinerascentes, venis hirsutis ad crassiorem marginem nigro maculatae … Comes prioris [C.caspius, = O.dorsalis, Mg.], rarior red ferocior.”

At the present moment our knowledge of the Dipterous fauna, including the Tabanidae, of Palestine is little better than complete ignorance, consisting as it does solely of a few isolated records of species—chiefly mosquitos. The following paper, which it is intended shall be succeeded by others dealing with other families of Diptera, based upon material collected by the author in Palestine during the recent campaign against the Turks, is a modest attempt to lift one small corner of the veil of obscurity.

The writer of the following notes has been engaged on entomological investigations in Fiji, Australia and Hawaii since 1914; the work has been entirely confined to the pests of sugar-cane and has been carried on mainly in the first-mentioned country, where insect depredations are very serious and materially reduce the profits on a considerable number of plantations. The investigation of these Fijian cane pests open up a field that is practically new, and so the work will probably continue for some considerable time. The length of the period that is likely to elapse before the publication of final results is such that it seems desirable to place on record a few of the main points in the life-histories of the more important insects of the sugar-cane plantations of that country, and so the writer has complied these notes containing summaries of their life-histories in so far as they are at present known to him.

Very little is known about the African DELPHACIDAE, especially the tropical forms. For this reason it is worth recording the few species represented in a small collection made by Mr. J. C. Bridwell at Oloke-Meji, Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1914. All the specimens were swept from grasses and reeds. It isto be hoped that larger collections will soon be available and that those who work at them will examine and give figures or adequate descriptions of the genitalia, especially of the aedeagus. Owing to the wide distribution ofsome species and the great difference in colour of other species, and the paucity of good specific distinctions in the chroötic characters, it isalmost impossible to identify many species of the Delphacides group without making use of the phallic characters.

Dr. Guy A. K. Marshall, Director of the Imperial Bureau of Entomology, has requested me to indentify four specimens of a Lygaeid sent to him by Dr. C. J. J. Van Hall from Java, where it was found among stored rice. It is a very distinct species and represents a new genus of which I here give figure and description.

From October 1918 to February 1919 inclusive I was stationed at Basrah, Lower Mesopotamia, and during that time I was able to devote some time to the collecting of Culicidae and their larvae.

The following notes on the various insects injurious to the economic crops of the Zanzibar Protectorate are based on investigations made during the last few years.

Entomological investigations in the tropics usually entail a certain amount of difficulties not experienced in temperate regions, and it is often necessary to devise various kinds of apparatus to overcome these. The breeding cage described here was devised by myself as the result of a number of difficulties experienced in breeding experiments. Cages of this type have been in constant use in this laboratory for the past four years and have been found to meet almost every requirement. The ease with which they are constructed, together with the possibility of varying their size to suit one’s needs, as well as their portability, are all highly commendable features.

The problems of how to obtain accurate records of the infestation of injurious insects has during recent years received considerable attention; and when we take into consideration that it is quite as impossible to study the course of an outbreak during its different stages as it is to compare two outbreaks occurring in different localities or at different times, without possessing methods of recording in an accurate way the degree of infestation and injury, it is evident that every effort must be made to solve this difficulty and devise means of obtaining accurate records in these respects.

♀ Nigra; thorace brevissimo, fusco-ferrugineo; tergitis tribus basalibus fascia apicali angusta pallide aureo-sericea; area pygidiali nulla.