The factors responsible for the relative resistance of plants to aphid attack are not very well known. Chemical analyses of several varieties of peas indicate that the quantity of nitrogenous constituents in plant juice is proportional to the susceptibility of the plant to aphid attack. These tests hare also demonstrated that amino acids represent the major portion of the soluble nitrogenous constituents in the plants studied.

By the method of paper partition chromatography, several qualitative and semi-quantitative analyses were made of the amino acids in juice extracts of two varieties of peas and of pea aphids feeding on these varieties. This particular method of chromatography, first developed in England in 1944 by Consden, Gordon, and Martin (1), and modified since by other workers (2, 3), was found very effecrive for these studies.

For a number of years, at least one species of Dytiscus, apparently undescribed, has been in my collection.

Recently Professor M. H. Hatch asked me to describe this species in order that he might include it in his forthcoming book on The Coleoptera of the Pacific Northwest.

Although Balfour-Browne, 1935, pointed out that the correct spelling of the generic name is Dyticus, this does not seem to have been accepted, as in the 5th Supplement to the Leng Catalogue, Dytiscus is still used. I, therefore, use that spelling.

The hide beetle, Dermestes maculatus Degeer, is a cosmopolitan insect which each year causes considerable losses to stored products throughout the world. The economic importance of this species is due especially to the habit which the mature larvae have of boring into many commodities in order to pupate. However, the larvae and adults also feed on and thus damage a wide variety of substances with a high protein content (4), e.g., bones, carcasses, skins and hides of all kinds, etc.

The following article contains two records apparently new to Vancouver Island, notes concerning two species rare in collections from the island and remarks concerning the status of Leptura soror LeConte.

Holopleura murginata LeC. A single male, taken on Mount Tzouhalem, Duncan, Vancouver Island, on May 21, 1947, by R. L. Fiddick apparently provides the first record for the island. This interesting species was called to my attention by G. Stace Smith of Creston to whom it was originally sent for determination. The only other British Columbia record, published by H. B. Leech (1945) is based on a single specimen beaten from a Douglas fir at Arrowhead, B.C. by G. Slade on May 10, 1945.

On July 12, 1950 a collection of adults of the moth Acentropus niveus (Oliv.) was made on the north shore of Lake Erie near the village of South Cayuga, Ontario (Maps A, B-3). At the southern limits of the townships of Dunn and South Cayuga (Haldimand County) a shallow bay extends for a distance of about two miles along the shore of the lake (Map A). Along this bay is a sandy or gravelly beach ten to twenty yards wide backed by a cliff of clay that rises abruptly above the beach. On the day the collections were made the sky was clear and a brisk southerly breeze was causing waves to wash on the beach. The action of the waves had deposited debris, consisting largely of tangled masses of a filamentous green alga and exuviae of the mayfly Hexagenia occulta, in a windrow six inches to two feet wide along the shore. The moths ere found in this debris, most of them lying dead and with bedraggled wings, while some lay on their backs with wings stuck to the damp surface and with legs kicking and a few were crawling about on the debris.

A large apple orchard at Queenston, Ont., was sprayed regularly with DDT in 1946, 1947, and 1948, but in 1949 part of it was left unsprayed. The unsprayed trees became so heavily infestcd with leafhoppers that by the end of August the foliage was severely injured. The injury was similar to that caused by the white apple leafhopper, Typhlocyba pomaria McAtee.

A collection of more than 200 nymphs was made on August 11 and reared to maturity, and additional adults were collected on August 29. All of the males, except a few specimens of Erythroneura lawsoniana Baker, proved to be Typhlocyba froggatti Baker.

In 1862 H. C. Wood described a new centipede, Mecistocephalus fulvus, which he found “not very abundantly” in the vicinity of Philadelphia. To my knowledge no subsequent worker has ever attempted to refer a centipede to this species, nor has fulvus ever been considered a synonym of any other species, so that for eighty-eight years it has been regarded privately or in print as being incertae sedis.

The confusion surrounding this species has been due primarily to the following considerations: it has never been taken by anyone other than its author; the type is missing; it was highly improbable that this species could be referred to Mecistocephalidae, or even to Mecistocephalus, a genus represented in the eastern United States by a single imported species; and the original description itself refers to a centipede not quite like anything else known to occur in the east.

During recent field studies of the behaviour and activiw of larvae in colonies of M. americanum and H. textor, it was noticed that nymphs and adults of Podisus placidus (Uhler) and of P. modestus (Dallas) frequently visited colonies of the eastern tent caterpillar and occasionally those of the spotless fall webworm. Although small larvae, particularly those of the tent caterpillar, fell prey to both nymphs and adults, larvae of the fifth and sixth instars occasionally exhibited special reactions.

Last year a short note (Musgrave, 1949) described the possibilities of fluorescein for marking insects. The method has since been adopted and much elaborated by the Apiculture Department here (Townsend, 1950).

But another and very interesting question remained insufficiently answered: was it possible to dust a growing crop with fluorescein (and presumably, certain other solids) in such a way that visiting bees alighting on the crop would pick up the dust and carry it back to the hive an their bodies in detectable quantities? If it were then a very useful tool in field research in Entomology generally might well be available. During the summer of 1950 an experiment was devised to answer this question.

Interest in honey bee toxicology has recently received a fresh impetus as a result of the development of many new insecticides and the more general appreciation of the honey bee as an important pollinator. In particular, for seed setting in many legumes the honey bee appears to be essential. This bibliography is therefore presented at this time to serve as a guide to the literature. The extent of the literature is considerable: the bibliography is extensive, but it would be unwise to claim that it is complete. It contains references up to the fall of 1949.