A new species of thrips is described which is predatory on Tetranychid mites on apple trees in Iraq. It bears a superficial resemblance to species of Scolothrips, but in view of the undivided tarsi and the chaetotaxy of teh head and pronotum it is placed in a new genus as Parascolothrips priesneri sp.n.

It has been found difficult to understand how such a fragile creature as an Anopheline larva could withstand the force of a strong current of water. In the following article it is proposed to explain the phenomenon on anatomical grounds.

The Spinach Stem Fly Hylemyia echinata (Séguy), is an important pest of spinach (Spinacia oleracea) grown in the east and south-east of England for canning and freezing. Attack by the larvae results in the blackening and distortion of terminal shoots and the splitting and discoloration of petioles and mid-ribs, and some larvae may be present in the crops when they are harvested.

The eggs are laid in May on the upper surfaces of the leaves and among the leaflets of the terminal and axillary buds. The larvae penetrate the epidermis and tunnel through the mesophyll until they reach mid-ribs, petioles or stems where they feed on the hollow inner surfaces. The puparia are usually found in the soil but may occur in the feeding sites. The second generation emerges in June and July, and further emergences occur in August and September. Larvae are present in the crops from May to October.

Eggs and larvae are described and illustrated so that they can be distinguished from those of the Mangold Fly, Pegomyia betae (Curt.), which are often present on spinach at the same time. The flies are described and the characters which distinguish them from the Bean Seed Flies, Delia cilicrura (Rond.), are noted.

Coelalysia glossinophaga, sp. nov.

♀ Testacea; capite nigro; mandibulis fusco-ferrugineis; scapo fusco; flagello nigro, articulis 40, articulis 15–28 albis; tarsis articulo apicali fusco; terebra, abdomine paullo longiore, nigra; alis hyalinis, iridescentibus, venis nigris.

The mosquito, Psorophora posticata, Wied. (Janthinosoma musica, Say), commonly deposits its eggs in the rain-water that accumulates in the broken cacao pods strewn in heaps about the cool shady parts of cacao fields.

During a recent dry spell in the Brisbane area the canal situated at Nundah, known as Schultz's, had become silted, and various aquatic and other weeds had taken possession of the bed. Owing to pollution from a sewer, produced higher up, Culex fatigans, as is usual on such occasions, was breeding amongst the aquatic vegetation consisting mainly of Eichhornia speciosa (Water Hyacinth), Hydrilla verticillata (Water Thyme) and Jussiaea repens (Yellow Primrose). The large quantities of Characeae, usually so abundant in this canal during wet tunes, had completely disappeared.

Methods of approach to the control of I. ricinus by acaricidal action are outlined, and the type of acaricide for the control of ticks on dairy stock is discussed.

Dairy cattle were treated against ticks. Arsenic and carbolic washes were avoided for specified causes. The results of using (i) derris (5·5 per cent, rotenone), (ii) 0·5 per cent. DDT, (iii) DDT in a mixture with pyrethrum, talc or kaolin base, and (iv) pyrethrum (0·9 per cent. pyrethrins I and II) in aqueous solution show that (i) had a greater residual toxicity when applied to cattle, (ii) produced erratic results, which at present do not permit of specific recommendations. When DDT is employed in conjunction with pyrethrum as a powder (iii) the effective duration is low, and this is true also of pyrethrum as an aqueous wash (iv).

The object of this investigation was to discover the extreme length of life of nymphs and adults of Pediculus humanus corporis, de Geer, when starved at different temperatures. It is important to know this for practical reasons. Though it is impossible to complete the experiments as originally designed, it is considered that such information as has been accumulated should be recorded.

Based on the results of field surveys carried out between May 1977 and June 1981, the distributions of Glossina morsitans submorsitans Newst., G. palpalis gambiensis Vanderplank and G. tachinoides Westw. in Mali are presented and compared with previously reported information. The distributions of both G. m. submorsitans and G. p. gambiensis were found to be greater than previously reported, whereas that of G. tachinoides was found to be less. The apparent northern limits of both G. m. submorsitans and G. p. gambiensis are at approximately 14°20′N but that of G. tachinoides is at only about 13°10′N. No specimens of G. longipalpis Wied., previously reported from Mali, were captured.

Entomological investigations in the tropics usually entail a certain amount of difficulties not experienced in temperate regions, and it is often necessary to devise various kinds of apparatus to overcome these. The breeding cage described here was devised by myself as the result of a number of difficulties experienced in breeding experiments. Cages of this type have been in constant use in this laboratory for the past four years and have been found to meet almost every requirement. The ease with which they are constructed, together with the possibility of varying their size to suit one’s needs, as well as their portability, are all highly commendable features.

The range of Thyridanthrax abruptus (Lw.), a widespread puparial parasite of Glossina morsitans Westw. in East Africa, is now extended to British West Africa where this species has been found parasitising a Calliphorid fly, Rhyncomyìa pìctìfacìes Big. Puparia of R. pictifacies were collected in the stream-bed sand of dry-season breeding sites of Glossina palpalis (R.-D.) and G. morsitans submorsitans Newst. at the following localities in Northern Nigeria: Gamagira, Zaria Province; Mando Road (25 miles NNW. of Kaduna), Zaria Province; Rahama, Bauchi Province. All were collected during January and February 1957. During February, eight adults of Thyridanthrax emerged from a total of 33 puparia of R. pictifacies found at Rahama.

All the described species of Poëphila have come from West Africa. Jacoby, in describing Crepidodera zambiensis in 1899, considers that it should be placed in a separate genus, and I now place it in Poëphila. It is very close to his two species, P. costatipennis and fulvipes. These three species have the elytra blue. Including the new species now described, the genus contains five species.

An account is given of Diconocoris hewetti (Dist.), a sporadic pest of pepper in Sarawak. Most of the observations were made during a single outbreak in 1964. The egg and the five nymphal stages are described. The life cycle is completed in about 30 days at 27 ± 1°C., 80 ± 2 per cent. R.H. and the duration of individual stages is as follows: egg, at least ten days; first instar, four days; second instar, three days; third instar, three days; fourth instar, four days; fifth instar, five days; adults in laboratory cultures lived, on average, for 27 days.

Eggs are laid singly in the flowering inflorescences, and nymphs do not generally move far from their hatching sites during nymphal life. Both nymphs and adults feed on the inflorescences and infestation is particularly heavy on those spikes in which fertilisation of the flowers has ocurred but where the developing fruits do not yet exceed 1 or 2 mm. in diameter.

A survey of 60 holdings in the Kuching area showed that numbers of Tingids are very low during non-outbreak periods, only 0.4 individuals per vine (adults and late nymphal instars) being obtained during the flowering season. Numbers deceased to 0.03 insects per vine during the fruiting period. In the outbreak studied, numbers per vine varied from 3 to 10, a ten- to one hundred-fold increase over the normal levels; these figures are relative estimates only as there was no satisfactory method of estimating absolute densities in the time available.

It is suggested that serious outbreaks of Diconocoris may be due to exceptional prolongation of the flowering period of pepper vines in a district, due to cultural practices or climatic factors.

Yield losses due to Tingids in the area studied were estimated at about 30 per cent. Diconocoris can be satisfactorily controlled with sprays of various insecticides including BHC, DDT, malathion, carbaryl (Sevin) and nicotine.

Erythroneura lubiae, sp. n.

Colour :—Pale green covered with a whitish pruinosity ; middle of pronotum and apices of tibiae, tarsi and ovipositor of ♀, slightly darker green ; a spot at middle of apical margin of pronotum and a broad stripe down middle two-thirds of scutellum, opaque white. Eyes dark greenish grey, apex of rostrum brown. In some female specimens the head and pronotum are uniformly greenish yellow and the white spots are obsolete. Tegmina more or less hyaline, the veins, clavus, brachial and suprabrachial areas, sub-opaque, suffused with pale green or greenish yellow ; the membrane infuscate towards apex and along inner margin ; claval commissure very narrowly and extreme inner margin of membrane beyond apex of clavus, dark brown ; costal plaque distinct, pallid. Wings whitish hyaline, faintly infuscate towards apex, veins white. Abdomen pale whitish green, basal tergite and anal segment greenish yellow. Tibial spines white.

Structure :—Ocelli absent ; head as wide across eyes as pronotum across humeral angles (47 : 47) ; seen from above slightly less than half as long in middle as wide between eyes (13 : 27), only slightly longer than length at eye (13 : 11) ; face (including clypeus) about 2·25 times as long as wide between antennae (50 : 22) ; frons three times as long as clypeus (36 : 12), which is apically sub-angulate. Pronotum about half as long as wide across humeral angles (23 : 47).

In the Somali country this tick is found in the soil in or around the huts on the outskirts of the coastal towns, showing a predilection for the more squalid and insanitary areas where the indigent Somalis reside. In the interior it frequents most camps of long-standing which are inhabited by human beings and their domestic animals. They are extremely common in the dusty soil surrounding the wells and waterholes. In the waterless Haud and the Nogal Valley they are most frequently found under large trees, especially when these are in isolated positions, as at Ged Aboulrir on the Arori Plain, and afford the only shade for miles to the shepherd and his flock during the heat of the day.

Fifth-instar nymphs of Rhodnius prolixus Stålwere exposed to the vapours of 11 volatile drugs: acetone, bromobenzene, bromoform, carbon tetrachloride, chloral hydrate, chloroform, dioxane, ethanol, ethyl ether, isopropanol and paraldehyde. Bromobenzene, bromoform, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform and ether induced reversible anaesthesia. For each of these five, the insects exhibited a different andspecific pattern of motor responses before becoming totally immobile; these responses are described. The responses to carbon tetrachloride are similar to the normal feeding responses of this insect. The other six drugs did not induce anaesthesia, but instead, a commonand stereotyped pattern of cleaning responses, suggesting irritation of the sensory organs. It is proposed that the agent-specific responses to the anaesthesiainducing drugs are due to their differential action upon specific portions of the insect central nervous system.

A pronounced variation in the time taken by hopper bands of Nomadacris septemfasciata, Serv., to become adult swarms in different localities in the Nyasaland Protectorate during the four breeding seasons from 1932 to 1936, led to an investigation and comparison of certain climatic factors occurring during the critical months of hopper development at a number of stations where such variation had been particularly noticeable.

It was found that temperature and percentage relative humidity appeared to have considerable influence on the rate of development of the hopper bands, and that the quiescent nature of the bands in certain areas in some years, together with the unexpectedly small adult swarms that matured from these bands, seemed to be correlated with these same factors. It was noticeable that conditions during the first season, when development was generally normal, were somewhat hotter and drier throughout the country than in the later years and that, in most places, a marked increase in humidity usually accompanied by a decline in temperature was recorded each year up to 1936. In certain areas where hopper development occurred each year without much variation in length of time or intensity, such as the lower Shire River Valley, temperatures and humidity were found to have fluctuated only slightly from year to year.