The balsam-fir seed chalcid, Megastigmus specularis Walley, destroys a high percentage of seeds of balsam fir, Abies balsamea (L.) Mill. The insect was first recorded in Canada in 1928 from New Brunswick and in 1932 was described by Walley (1932). It has been taken in the United States as far west as Minnesota (Peck, 1951). In 1953 the insect was reared from seeds of balsam fir taken at the Forest Nursery Station, Indian Head, Saskatchewan. Further investigations in 1954 showed the insect to be abundant at Indian Head, and also in natural stands of balsam fir in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba.

For several years the author has been engaged in a study of the predacious mites of value in controlling the European red mite, Metatetranychus ulmi (Koch), in southeastern England. During this time, extensive collections of mites of the subfamily Phytoseiinae were made and several new species found. These are described here.

New species of Phytoseiinae have usually been described from female specimens only; the males have been frequently unknown. It is essential in ecological investigations to be familiar with both mature forms. During this study the males of some species of which the females had been described were collected and reared. Some of these have been described elsewhere (Chant, in preparation) and in this paper the male of Typhlodromus bakeri (Garman), 1948, is dealt with.

During August of 1955 a farmer, 35 years old, in Metcalfe Township, Middlesex County, Ontario repeatedly passed living maggots in feces during bowel movements. Four of these maggots were received by the writer on August 30, 1955 and were placed in an inch of damp soil in a screen-covered jar. On September 13 two sarcophagid flies, one male and one female, emerged from the soil and on September 14 two more males emerged. They were examined by Mr. G. E. Shewell, Systematic Entomology, Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, who identified them as Sarcophaga haemorrhoidalis (Fln.). The four specimens are deposited in the collection of the Department of Zoology, University of Western Ontario.

Coenosia tigrina (F.) was first observed in Canada in 1943 at Ottawa by Mr. A. R. Brooks of the Entomology Division (Mr. G. E. Shewell, Entomology Division, Ottawa, personal communication). By 1917 the insect had been collected as far west as Guelph, Ontario. It was first recorded from the province of Quebec in 1951 by Perron and Lafrance (1952), who observed it preying on adults of Hylemya antiqua (Mg.) in rearing cages at St. Jean. Later observations and surveys by these workers indicated the predator to be very abundant in southwestern Quebec. More recently Mr. F. M. Cannon (personal communication), Field Crop Insect Section, Science Service Laboratory, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and Mr. L. A. Miller (personal communication), Entomology Laboratory, Chatham, Ont., reported C. tigrina to be present as far east as Charlottetown and as far west as Chatham.

Since 1950 the University of California has maintained a program designed to evaluate the effectiveness of certain insect parasites in the control of the western grape leaf skeletonizer, Harrisina brillians B. & McD., in San Diego County, California. During this time, all sustained efforts to produce parasites in quantities for field release have failed because of recurrent outbreaks of a disease of the skeletonizer larvae. The causative agent of this disease was identified by Steinhaus and Hughes (1952) as a granulosis virus.

The superb plant bug, Adelphocoris superbus (Uhl.), is a serious pest in some alfalfa seed fields in southern Alberta. It feeds on the unopened bud clusters, causing them to whiten and die (bud-blasting). Under cages, it has also caused flower-drop, stunting of plants, and destruction of immature seed (Sorenson, 1954). When numerous it may prevent fields from producing enough bloom for the alfalfa pollinators in the vicinity, and in such numbers is of economic importance to the seed-growers. The number of bugs necessary for an economic population thus varies inversely with the pollinator population on the field.

During spray trials carried out recently for European pine shoot moth control in Ontario, a method was developed to assess dyed, oil-based insecticide spray deposits colorimetrically using a paper sampling surface. The procedure permits intensive sampling without the necessity of handling fragile or bulky sampling kits in the field.

The fallowing records represent a supplement to my former publication “Holarctic Elements among the Ichneumoninae of Maine” (Jour. Wash. Acad. Science 43. May, 1953, p. 148-50). They are based mainly on material obtained by the Northern Insect Survey, which is a co-operative project of the Canada Department of Agriculture and the Defence Research Board, Canada Department of National Defence.

Today methyl bromide is being used throughout the world to control insect pests. Intrinsically it is not among the most toxic of insect fumigants, but it has a combination of properties which gives it an unique position among gaseous insecticides. Of particular importance are its powers of penetration and its non-inflammability under normal fumigating conditions. Methyl bromide is important also as the leading fumigant in a group, the halogenated hydrocarbons, which includes other widely used fumigants such as ethylene dibromide, ethylene dichloride, and ethylene chlorobromide.

In 1953, 1954, and 1955 a species of leaf miner heavily infested leaves of apple trees in an orchard at Farnham, Que., causing severe damage to the crop. The pest was present on all apple varieties but was particularly abundant on Cortland. This infestation is apparently the first known to cause serious injury in Quebec.

Specimens were determined by Dr. T. N. Freeman, Entomology Division, Ottawa, as of Lithocolletis malimalifoliella Braun. This pest has not been previously reported from the Province of Quebec. It has been reported as a persistent and sometimes serious pest of apple in the Annapolis Valley, N.S. (Cameron and Patterson, 1941; Patterson and Neary, 1943), but does not appear to have been reported elsewhere in Canada. Under Quebec conditions L. malimalifoliella has two complete generations and a partial third per year and overwinters in the pupal stage. A survey revealed the pest to be present in all major apple-growing areas of the province.

Orchard spiders are important because of their predatory activities and their frequent abundance. They were recngnizcd as a group needing study at the time Pickett et al. (1946) began their long-term investigation of orchard fauna. The identities of the species involved, and their influence on populations of orchard pests, are the main factors to be considered.

This paper presents a list of the species collected in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia to date, together with brief comments of a general nature. Spiders have been collected in about 40 orchards since 1954. These orchards were subjected to a variety of cultural and pest control methods by the owners, but most were in sod cultivation, and under modified spray programs as described by Pickett and Patterson (1953). Collecting was done mainly by capping lower branches of trees over an inverted, open umbrella, hut specimens were also taken individually from crevices along tree trunks, and from trays under fumigated trees.

In June, 1955, a spider collected at Harrow, Ontario, May 28, 1955, by Mr. Robert Walsh of the Science Service Laboratory there, was sent to the author for determination. This specimen proved to be a mature male of the species, Atypus niger Hentz, commonly known as a “Purse-Web” spider. Subsequently, Dr. Willis J. Gertsch, of the American Museum of Natural History informed me that several years. ago he determined a female of Atypus niger found at Grimsby, Ontario (1). This specimen was collected on July 12, 1942, by Wm. L. Putman, of the Science Service Laboratory, Vineland, Ontario. Apparently Mr. Putman's specimen represents the first of this species to be taken in Canada. I am indebted to Dr. Gertsch for his kindness in making this information available for use at this time.

The purpose of the following investigation was to determine whether house flies overwinter under Manitoba winter conditions, and if so by what means. The overwintering problem is particularly interesting and important in areas with a severe winter climate such as that of Manitoba. Solving this problem would shed information as to the cold resistance and winter adaptations of this insect. It could also become an important factor in controlling this pest. By disinfecting overwintering sites the nuclei of next year's house fly population would be reduced. This in turn might retard the attainment of the high house fly population level during the following summer.

Among the important predators of the European red mite, Metatetranychus ulmi (Koch), in Nova Scotia is a group of predacious mites belonging to the subfamily Phytoseiinae. There is little information in the literature on the biology of the species in this subfamily. Smith and Summers (1949) reported on the bionomics of “Hypoaspis” macropilis (Banks), and Herbert (1952) and Ballard (1953) on the life-history of Typhlodromus fallacis (Garm.).

Dyar in 1907 described the genus Geshna with the type Hydrocampa cannalis Quaintance. In the same publication he described the new species Geshna primordialis. Forbes (1923) noted that primordialis was only doubtfully referable to Geshna; but he did not remove it from the genus. In this paper I describe a new genus for primordialis, two new subspecies of that species, and a new genus for the related Isopteryx stenialis Guenée.

Bacillus sotto Ishiwata is a bacterial pathogen of the larvae of Bombyx mori L. (the silkworm) and it has been shown (2) that the toxin it produces is associated with the crystalline inclusions (5) found in sporulated cells of this microorganism. The pathogenicity of B. sotto for the larvae of certain insect species and the properties of B. sotto toxin have been described previously (1, 2, 3). In the present paper the effect of the toxin on the larvae of several insect species is reported.

The oviposition behaviour of numerous parasites toward hosts already parasitized has been the subject of a considerable number of investigations during the past twenty years. Many species of ichneumonids, braconids and chalcids have been shown generally to avoid oviposition in parasitized hosts under laboratory and field conditions but there are conflicting views on the nature of this behiviour and on the cause for such rejection (Salt 1935, 1937, Ullyett 1936). Incomplete data hearing on these problems with the parasite Mastrus carpocapsae are given here. Dificulties in laboratory propagation and particularly irregular and erratic oviposition under the experimental techniques employed have prevented a fuller study; hut it is felt that the data will be of interest to workers in this field of behaviour since in certain respects the findings help in the interpretation of relevant facts demonstrated in previous investigations.

In July, 1952, at Mount Pearl, Newfoundland, larvae were found boring into the trunk of an injured balsam poplar, Populus balsamifera L. In June, 1953, six moths emerged from sections of the injured trunk placed in a cage in an insectary.

Dr. T. N. Freeman (in litt.), Entomology Division, Ottawa, who determined the moth as Pyranthrene tabaniformis Rott. (vespiformis Westwood), stated that this was probably the first record of this European species in North America. This was confirmed by Mr. Kelvin Dorward (in litt.), Economic Insect Survey Section, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.

Since 1919 it has been noticed in a number of peach orchards in the Niagara Peninsula that the larvae of Chrysopa plorabunda Fitch are highly resistant to DDT, whereas those of C. rufilabris Burm. are susceptible. Data obtained in a representative orchard since 1953 are summarized in Table I. Two 60- to 70-tree plots were sprayed with wettable sulphur or captan according to standard commercial schedules. Two adjacent plots were similarly treated with wettable sulphur and also with two applications of 50 per cent wettable DDT powder at 2 pounds per 100 gallons about 10 days apart in early July. Forty trees in each plot were sampled the same days at irregular intervals each season by brushing. This method, described elsewhere (Putman, 1955), is not a very efficient way of collecting chrysopid larvae because they are not easily dislodged from the foliage, but the numbers collected should be proportional to the actual populations. As sampling in this and in three other orchards showed that neither fungicide had any obvious effect on chrysopids, the two fungicide plots were considered as a single non-insecticide plot and the two DDT plots were similarly combined. Each value in the table represents the total number of larvae collected in each pair of plots in three to eight samplings during July and August after the first application of DDT.