The biologies of Zagrammosoma americanum Gir. and other small chalcid parasites are being studied at the Belleville laboratory. During these investigations a cage was required that would: (1) permit microscopic observation, with a minimum of disturbance to the insect, (2) allow ready introduction and removal of food and host material, without danger of the insects escaping, and (3) have aeration holes through which the interior could be sprayed. The description of a cage that satisfies the above requirements follows.

In October, 1953, an estimated 20 per cent of the sheep in “The Green” section of Bell Island, Conception Bay, Newfoundland, were infested with blowfly larvae. In some instances the infestation was so severe that the sheep died from the attack.

Larvae collected from an infested sheep were reared on Pard (Swift Canadian Company, Toronto) dog food. The flies were considered by Mr. J. F. McAlpine, Systematic Entomology Unit, Entomology Division, Ottawa, to be of Phaenicia sericata (Mg.). Mr. McAlpine (in litt.) hoted that the Newfonndland specimens differed slightly from Hall's concept of P. sericata in colour, degree of pollinosity, and width of from in the male; however, a small series of reared adults was all that was available from Newfoundland and these differences may fall within the limits of variation for such a common, widespread species.

Insects of the genus Ceuthophilus although widely distributed in North America are seldom encountered by the collector unless attracted and captured by means of Hubbell's molasses traps. These traps, which consist of glass jars (Hubbell recommends pint-size Mason jars) containing half an inch to an inch of molasses diluted one-half with water, are buried to the brim in the ground or heaped around with stones, leaves, etc., to give access to the edge of the jar. Hubbell recommends placing them “…at least ten feet apart, and where ground-cover is scanty…, near such as does occur” in habitats or situations which are expected to yield specimens of Ceuthophilus: almost any type of forest, rock piles, stone fences, vicinity of the openings of mammal burrows, caves, certain grasslands, etc….

Very rarely is an entomologist called upon to control the “insects” that are causing an obvious case of hallucinations. The following case history is of unusual interest because two people were involved, both having very similar experiences.

During November and December, 1952, Mr. and Mrs. X, aged 73 and 59 years, respectively, had been constantly plagued by an infestation of “bugs” in their well-kept farm home. The “bugs” were to be found in almost every part of the house at any time of the day, but were particularly bothersome during the night. Their bites were fearsome and occasioned a great deal of itching.

It has been shown by Farstad (1940) and Platt (1946, 1948) that resistance in wheat to the wheat stem sawfly, Cephus cinctus Nort., is positively correlated with solidness of stem. Under certain environmental conditions the resistant variety Rescue becomes susceptible to sawfly damage. The nature of this resistance is unknown, but a study of the nutritional requirements of C. cinctus may reveal it and perhaps assist in the development of new resistant varieties. The preliminary phases of this project were conducted with the following objectives: to studv the anatomy of the larval organs of ingestion and digestion; to determine the plant tissues ingested by the larva; and to study the hydrolytic enzymes present in feeding larvae.

There are many papers on the effects of meteorological factors on insects, but only a few state these effects in terms of large-scale weather processes. Even fewer report the logical condusion of such studies: prediction of the biological phenomena with the aid of modern methods of weather analysis and forecasting.

This paper presents the results of bioclimatic investigations of two species of diprionid sawflies, Neodiprion americanus banksianae Roh. and N. lecontei (Fitch), important defoliators of pines in eastern North America. It deals primarily with the reactions of larvae of both species to gradients of evaporation rate.

Ceratophyllus swansoni Liu, 1935, was described from one male and one female specimen collected from a long-eared owl, “Asio wilsonianus” [A. otus ssp.], at Fertile, Minnesota. The species is not well known in collections, and the writer knows of only one other published record, from Beaverhead Co., Montana, reared from nests of the same owl (Jellison et al., 1943). The host affinities of C. swansoni have remained uncertain, as predatory birds are not usually normal hosts of fleas.

This paper is a report an the applicability of the linear discriminant function to insect taxonomy. Mather and Dobzhansky (1939) and Cox (1953) applied this technique to problems in insect taxonomy, but the former study was concerned with detecting a difference between samples, and the latter used the function only secondarily. In this paper, discriminant functions were calculated from several combinations of linear characters in males of two closely related species of grasshopper, Arphia pseadonietana (Thomas) and A. conspersa Scudder, to determine: (a) whether a reliable criterion could be found for relatively inexperienced workers to determine individual specimens with a predictable degree of precision; and (b) which characters, or combination of characters, would provide the most reliable criteria.

With the increased availability of radioisotopes and their application to the study of insect behaviour and dispersal, the possibility of using a radio-active tag on grasshoppers was investigated. Preliminary studies on the distribution of radio-active phosphorus (P32) in Melanoplus mexicanus mexicanus (Sauss.) and Camnula pellucida (Scudd.) were carried out by Murray (1949) and Fuller (1950). The P32, in the form of phosphate ion, was placed on food plants in drop form, or the leaves were dipped in an aqueous solution containing the phosphate ion. When this was fed to the grasshoppers over 50 per cent of the activity was excreted, but the amount retained was distributed throughout the body. The highest activities were recorded for the thorax and the metathoracic legs. The radio-activity apparently had no ill effects on the grasshoppers. However, more specific data were required to determine how well the applied activity is taken up and how long it is retained.

In collecting sawfly eggs, larvae, and cocoons for propagating beneficial insects at the Belleville laboratory, a heavy infestation of a pine sawfly, Neodiprion nanulus Schedl, was discovered in 1942 nine miles north of Belleville, on a 25-year-old plantation of red pine, Pinus resinosa Ait.; Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris L.; and jack pine, Pinus banksiana Lamb.

From samples of the eggs collected in the spring of 1943, no parasites emerged.

A number of reports on snow insects have been made by entomologists although many of them are brief and fragmentary. Brauer (1871) long ago considered the problem which winter represents for insect life and stated that Boreus (Mecoptera: Boreidae) and Chionea (Diptera: Tipulidae) and several members of the Collembola were true snow insects. Frey (1913) collected many insects from the surface of snow and listed representatives of the above mentioned groups from Finland, as mlell as a large number of insects whose presence on the snow was apparently accidental. Marchand (1917) made some interesting observations on the bchaviour of Chionea and its temperature tolerance and referred to several earlier papers on this genus. Handschin (1919a) carried out an extended study of the snow zone fauna of the high Alps and took many specimens on the snow or on glaciers. However, he did not list Boreus and his Diptera had not been identified when he made his report. Collembola were dealt with in another publication (1919b).

Tomotaenia was proposed in 1895 by O. F. Cook (3, p. 866) for the reception of a number of Nearctic species; Strigamia parviceps Wood, 1862 (6, p. 49) was cited as the genotype. In 1953 (4, p. 172) I considered Tomotaenia a junior synonym of Strigamia chiefly because reliable information on the questionable type species, parviceps, was neither to be gained from a study of the unavailable type specimen nor from a perusal of the literature and because of the fact that the original description of parviceps in some ways suggests the typical Strigamia habitus. In addition, Attems and others have placed parviceps in Scolioplanes [=Strigamia]. However, in a paper recenrlv published Chamberlin (2) shows that dignathodontid [linotaeniid of Chamberlin] centipedes agreeing in many particulars with Wood's descriptions of parviceps and especially epileptica (loc. cit) inhabit the northwestern United States in some abundance. Perhaps the most striking characteristics of these specimens are their possession of undivided ultimate pedal pretergites, broad ultimate pedal sternites, and coxopleural pores restricted to an area immediately bordering the afore-mentioned sternites. These features, then, might be taken as justifiable bases for separating forms congeneric with epileptica from those properly referable to Strigamia.

In a study of the effects of temperature on the evaporation from the cuticle of the grasshopper, Melanoplus bivittatus (3), it was essential to know the surface area of the insect. Because no such information is available for this species and because the surface area of insects rarely varies as the two-thirds power of the weight, an attempt was made to determine the constants of the Meeh formula, S=kWn (5) which would best correlate the surface area and the weight.

The genus Carphoborus is widely distributed in the Holarctic realm. It occurs from the northern limits of tree growth south in the Old World to India and northern Africa and in the New World to Baja California, New Mexico, Mississippi, and Florida.

All of the North American species breed in the inner bark of coniferous trees of the genera Pinus, Picea, and Pseudotsuga. Branches that are being shaded out or are broken, but still hanging in the tree, are generally preferred for the construction of galleries. A few species have been reported from slash; however, they are usually not aggressive or abundant enough to survive in competition ivith other bark beetles normally found in slash. The economic importance of the genus is not great; the hahit of breeding in the unthrifty lower branches of coniferous trees contributes slightly toward accelerating the natural pruning of the trees and consequently aids in the production of a higher quality of timber.

Ixodes signatus Birula, 1895, pp. 357-358, Pl. 1, Figs. 10-13.

Ixodes arcticus Osborn, 1899, p. 553. Synonym, fide Cooley and Kohls, 1945, p. 201.

Ixodes parvirostris Neumann, 1901, p. 284. Synonym, fide Banks, 1908, p. 21, and Nuttall et al., 1911, p. 261.

Ixodes eudyptidis var. signata [Birula], Neumann, 1904, p. 451. Synonym, fide Nuttall et al., 1911, p. 261.

Ceratixodes signatus (Birula), Banks, 1908, p. 21, Pl. II, Figs. 1-3.

The spruce needle miner was first described by Kearfott in 1907 (4), as Lipoptycha albolineana sp. nov. It was given various names by different authors after that time, and in a revision by Heinrich (3) was placed in the new genus Taniva.

The larvae of the spruce needle miner feed within the needles of spruce. They form a nest with the dead needles and frass held together with webbing. Ornamental trees are more often infested than forest trees. Young trees growing under adverse conditions are particularly susceptible to serious injury.

The larvae of the plusiine genera Syngrapha and Autographa have but two pairs of ventral ahdominal legs; typical phalaenid larvae have four pairs of these legs. The setal arrangement seems to be fairly constant. Intraspecific variation in setal positions seems to be as great as interspecific. The patterns on the head (Figs. 2 and 3), thorax (Figs. 1, 6) and abdominal segments two and six (Fig. 5) are illustrated. The setal classification nf Hinton (3) has been used here.

Three North American species of Latalus and four of Quontus were listed by Oman (1999). Two of these are conspecific with a third and three new species are described below. Two of the previously described species have not been found in Canada and are not discussed here. They are Deltocephalus latidens Sanders and DeLong (1919, p. 234) and Latalus uncinatus Beamer and Tuthill (1934, p. 6). They are distinguished by genitalic characters described in the original descriptions. Quontus Oman (1949) is treated here as a synonym of Latalus DeLong and Sleesman (1929), as the distinctions given by Oman (1949) intergrade and do not always hold good. Canadian species of Latalus apparently inhabit grasslands. The best specific characters are in the internal male genitalia, though the female seventh sternite shows valid characters in some species.