The streams and lakes of western Montana offer a variety of habitats for species of aquatic insects but heretofore extensive collection and study of these forms has not been undertaken. During the past two years collections of both nymphs and adults have been made on several streams. The Plecoptera in these collections include the undescribed nymphs of Nemoura cinctipes Banks and several species which have not been reported for Montana.

My reason for asking scientific men in Canada to do something for their own future good is somewhat selfish. For eighteen summers I have taught classes in entomology at the Franz Theodore Stone Laboratory on Gibraltar Island at Put-in Bay, Ohio. This is a department of the Ohio State University definitely devoted to a study of the aquatic resources of Lake Erie and associated waters.

I first made the acquaintance of Papilio brevicauda in Cape Breton in the summer of 1936 when engaged on an Insect Faunal Survey of this region. We (i.e., my assistant Mr. T. N. Freeman and myself) had made our head-quarters at the picturesque town of Baddeck on Little Bras d'Or Lake and on the afternoon of July 12th I decided to row over to the small island opposite the town, which forms the eastern side of the harbour; this island is heavily wooded down to the water's edge except for a small strip of sandy beach on the Irest side, which is grown over with various coarse grasses and numerous low plants, chief among which is a flourishing colony of lovage (Ligusticum scothicum), a plant which to my knowledge does not accur on the mainland in this region.

In a general way, the ambushing habits and preying adaptations of Phymatidae are familiar to all entomologists. Yet, as shown by the bionomic summary for this family included by Readio (27) in his paper on the feeding methods and life history of Phymata erosa fasciata (Gray) at Lawrence, Kansas, only a handful of food records have appeared in the literature, and studies of the conditions surrounding the preying process in nature are lacking entirely.

The following dexriptions are based on specimens collected by Mr. E. H. Strickland in Alberta, Canada. All holotypes and allotypes are deposited in the Canadian National Collection at Ottawa, Ontario. Paratypes are in the collection at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, and in the Caldwell collection at Ohio State University, Columbus.

As it may not have come to the notice of all American coleopterists, may I first point out that the correct spelling of the name for the Dytiscid genus long known as Graphoderes Thomson should be Graphoderus, and its authorship should be accredited to Aubé. The above changes should be credited to Dr. F. Guignot of Avignon, France, who in his magnificent work “Hydrocanthares de France”, (Ouvrage couronné par la Société Entomologique de France), 1931-33 points out:—I translate freely—

The purpose of this paper is to provide a name for an undescribed species of the platygasterine genus Allotropa which has been encountered in Canada as a parasite of the mealybug Phenacoccus aceris (Sign.). Brief notes are also given on the single previously known Nearctic species of Allotropa and on another species which was erroneously described in that genus.

In view of the known lack of effectiveness and doubtful value of many of the materials cited in literature as being of value as repellents for biting flies, a series of experiments was carried out at the direction of the Dominion Entomologist, during the past three seasons, with the object of determining which of the many materials recommended as repellents might be the most effective and which the most lasting in effect.

Leafhoppers in Utah frequently are parasitized to an important extent by the maggots of big-eyed flies. The following report deals largely with Pipunculus fiies collected in Utah canyons and apparently parasitizing the meadow and range leafhoppers which usually were abundant wherever the big-eyed flies were found in appreciable numbers. A number of the intermountain representatives of this important dipterous family appear to be undescribed.

In a recent note (1938, Canadian Entomologist, LXX, 128) I suggested that this name should be applied in a strict sense to the species the larva of which feeds on Aster and Grindelia, but hesitated to separate the Balsamorrhiza feeder as a distinct species owing to lack of material; I had, however, called attention (1936, Canadian Entomologist, LXVIII, 63) to certain differences in the setal structure of the pupal cases which warranted further investigation.

Palpi ochreous brown; head, front and vertex white. Collar, tegulae, abdomen dorsally and all wings bright blue-green; underside of abdomen white; antennal shaft white, branches ochreous; legs white, flecked with brown, brown spots at the joints and at tips of tarsi; fore femora green. A tiny white dot dorsally on the second and third segments of the abdomen.

The genus Serropalpus differs from other genera in the tribe Serropalpini in having an almost obliterated suture between the prosternum and the episternum, long slender antennae, and strongly serrate maxillary palpi which have a cultriform terminal segment. It is like Phloeotrya and Dircaea in having a short prosternum before the anterior coxal cavity.

Most of the records which follow are the compilation of field work during the period of September 1936 to September 1937 and the summer of 1938 while I was a member of the faculty of the University of Miami. Several able Orthopterists, particularly J. A. G. Rehn, Morgan Hebard, W. T. Davis, A P. Morse, and T. H. Hubbell have collected widely in southeastern United States, describing many new species.

In spite of Mr. H. C. Fall's paper on Ilybius in the “Entomological News”, XXXVIII, 1927, much confusion as to the correct identification of species in that genus is still apparent. Nor is this to be wondered at. One species frequently superficially resembles another so closely that only careful discrimination will make certain what is in hand. Further, to my knowledge, no key by which females can be determined has been devised. This latter deficiency I have endeavoured to remedy.

When economic entomology concerns itself in the line of biological control further than the introduction of foreign parasites to offset the inroads of introduced pests and turns for help to our indigenous hordes of balancing agents, as it must do some day, college professors may well direct their students to Papaipema biologies. Here an easy exposition of what holds a large genus to innocuous bounds is amply portrayed and, as hosts to such a retinue which goes still further afield, proclaims them in fact helpful species of our biota.

In 1938 (1) we recorded twenty-eight species of Psyllidae which had been captured in Alberta. Of these, twenty-one were taken, for the first time on record, during the summer of 1937. Although psyllids were far less numerous in 1938 than they had been in 1937, it is now possible to add eleven additional records to the list of species which occur in this province. These include three previously undescribed forms all of which are described by Caldwell in an accompanying article. We are indebted to Mr. Caldwell, also, for the determination of the other species here recorded.

Our society really owes its origin to an enthusiastic interest in entomology on the part of two young men who were beginning a study of insects shortly after the middle of the last century, and to the support and encouragement given them by a college professor who himself had a non-professional interest in entomology. These two young men were Charles James Stewart Bethune and William Saunders. The former was to become headmaster of Trinity College School and later head of the Department of Entomology and Zoology at the Ontario Agricultural College.

I spent December to April 1937—'38 at St. John, Virgin Island, W. I., and the same period 1938—'9 at Tahiti, French Oceania. The following paper records the species taken, with some notes as to habits and brief descriptions as to the colour pattern of the live insects. This I hope is justified, for too often the original description is of specimens long dead, when the body colour has faded and that of the eyes completely changed.

This paper has already received a partial introduction in a previous publication (Canadian Entomologist, LXX, 102) in which it was stated that a revision of this genus was contemplated in order to determine the status of two Eastern Canadian species. It only remains, therefore, to acknowledge the help that has been given me by the loan of specimens and in other ways, and to make a few remarks about the characters that have been utilized in the key and descriptions.