The pea aphid infestation at Howick, Aubrey and Brysonville, Quebec, was severe in 1938. On June 28, complete commercial dusting equipment and a sufficient amount of rotenone-bearing dust were brought to the fields for the treatment of peas against the insect.

The orthopterous fauna of this area of eastern Canada and of Newfoundland is exceedingly limited but at the same time is of considerable interest to those who are interested in the faunistics and ecology of this group.

My original intention was to describe a new species of the genus Enargia, but upon doing the genitalia of the “common widespread species”, I found that there were in reality two species and not one; Mr. F. H. Wolley Dod came to this same conclusion from a superficial examination of his material in 1905 (Can. Ent., xxxvii, (241-246) and further substantiated his conclusions in 1913 (Can. Ent., xlv, 130).

In June, 1938, I was able to spend eight days at the Public Museum of Quebec studying the Provancher collection of Ichneumonidae. Mr. Pierre-Georges Roy (Director of the Museum), Mr. Paul Rainville (Assistant Director), and Mr. Noel-M. Comeau (Curator of Insects), were very cordial and gave me facilities and help that made it possible to accomplish much more than could otherwise have been done.

American records of virens Shrank as based on specimens of kendalli Kby. which is a well characterized species and not a synonym or variety of virens as stated by some authors. The range of kendalli is transcontinental, and extends from the northern limits of the subartic forests south to Maine, the Lake Superior region, the prairies, and central British Columbia.

Soon after the discovery of the mealy bug Phenacoccus aceris Sig. in the orchards of Nova Scotia in 1932, a parasite of much importance was found attacking this pest. This is a small hymenopterous species described in this issue by Dr. C. F. W. Muesebeck as a new species, Allotropa utilis Mues.

Representatives of two new species of Homoneura from South Dakata were recently sent to me for description by Mr. George Steyskal of Detroit. Examination of unnamed material in the National Collection showed that these two species were also represented by Canadian material.

The great basin tent-caterpillar is the most abundant form of Malacosoma found in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. In Colorado, the species is often a serious pest of the aspen. It feeds upon a wide variety of deciduous trees and shrubs. In the foothills, Rhus trilobata and Prunus melanocarpa are frequently attacked. Whole aspen groves at higher altitudes are often defoliated by this species. In the mountains, the migrating larvae have occasionally been so numerous as to stop locomotives by greasing the rails with their crushed bodies.

The family Chrysomelidae was established by Redtenbacker in 1846, but its principal subdivisions and its definite limits were not fixed until 1848 when that eminent French entomologist, Lacordaire, gave us his “Monographie des Phytophages”.

The following report deals with three apparently undescribed species of Macrosiphina collected upon Lonicera and Geranium in the Logan Canyon-Beaver Creek areas of northern Utah and just over the state line into Idaho.

C. G. de Dalle Torre (Catalogus hymenopterorum, vol. 3, p. 24) makes the following erroneous entry:

“Plectiscus pleuralis (Cress.) Davis—♀—Am. New Jersey.

Tryphon pleuralis Cresson, Proc. Entom. Soc. Philadelphia. III. 1864, p. 275 n. 5, ♀.

Plectiscus pleuralis Davis, Trans. Amer. Entom. Soc. xxiv. 1897, p. 245 ♀.”

In different regions of North America, Plebeius aquilo Bdv. varies considerably in size and maculation and appears to be differentiated into at least six geographical races. The distribution of each of these known races is roughly outlined in the accompanying diagram, and the localities marked are represented by specimens in the Canadian National Collection.

During the first week of August, 1938, my assistant in British Columbia, Mr. J. K. Jacob, was fortunate in being able to join a party which was penetrating into the little known and rather inaccessible mountain region west of Lytton and the Fraser river. A start was made at the junction of Kwieek Creek and the Fraser river, near the railway station of Boston Bar, about 10 miles south of Lytton; from here the route followed up the creek to Blue Lake situated at an altitude of 7000 feet, at the base of Antimony Mt., where the main camp was pitched.

For years several specimens of a Papilio form from Alberta, allied to oregonia Edw., have stood apart in the Canadian National Collection. Time and again I have puzzled over them but could never make them fit exactly under any of the existing names. Three of the series (males) came to us with the Wolley-Dod collection and were captured in 1905 in the bad lands of the Red Deer River Valley, somewhere near Drumheller; a fourth specimen (a female) was taken in the same general region in 1917 by C. H. Young.

In the early part of August, 1938, Professor Caesar, Provincial Entomologist, received from Kenneth C. Hume of Ayton, Ontario, a letter containing insects said to be numerous in that district. Professor Caesar identified these insects as the European earwig, Forficula auricularia L. This identification was later confirmed by the Dominion Entomologist from specimens forwarded by Professor Caesar when he reported the outbreak. This is the first recorded outbreak of the species in Canada east of the Rockies.

While engaged on an Insect Faunal Survey with Mr. W. J. Brown in the northeastern section of New Brunswick, we ran across a very interesting race of Coenonympha inornata on the salt marshes a few miles north of Bathurst. The butterflies were emerging in large numbers during the first week of August, a very late date for Coenonymphas, and were very definitely restricted to the salt meadows or marshes which lie just back of the coast in this region.

Within the past few years an increase both in abundance and distribution of the Mormon cricket has occurred in Saskatchewan. This was especially conspicuous in 1938.

Sympistis kolthoffi Auriv. originally described from Greenland (1890, Anarta kolthoffi Aurivillius, Bihand Till. K. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Handl., XV, 20, pl. 2, fig. 1) as a race of the European S. zetterstedti Staud., and has not been previously recorded from North America. Specimens of kolthoffi from Churchill, Manitoba, agree very favorably with the original description and figure, and appear specifically distinct from specimens of labradoris from the same and other Canadian localities.

Looking back to my earliest entomological recollections, I am struck with the number of noted entomologists that came to London to visit my father. Among the earliest of these was Augustus R. Grote, a rather dapper man of perhaps forty-five years, who visited us on several occasions. Another noted visitor was C. V. Riley who had an official position at Washington.

Observations on the life histories of Polites verna Edw., Hesperia leonardus Harr., and Ancyloxypha numitor Fabr. are reported here. Previous work on the rare P. verna included a vague description by Scudder of a drawing of the egg and a full account of the last larval instar. Concerning H. leonardus only the egg and first instar were known. A drawing of the second instar was also described (Scudder, 1889). In a previous communication (Dethier, 1938) it was pointed out that the third brood of A. nomitor probably passed the winter in the larval stage. This is confirmed and further details presented.