The efficiency of an entomophagous parasite may be defined as the capacity which it possesses for distributing its eggs among the available host population in such a manner that its progeny have the best possible chance of survival. This capacity is determined by a number of factors which are, as yet, imperfectly understood. Among these factors are the ability of the parasite female to discriminate between hosts which are suitable for the development of her progeny and those which are not; the relative densities of the parasite and host populations; the habits of the host insect; and the behaviour of the parasite itself during oviposition.

In material collected from Costello creek in Algonquin Park, Ontario, 1,549 males, 598 females and 2 pupae of a new species of blackfly were encountered. This species was present in marerial which was collected daily during the spring and summer of the years 1938-1943 using a cubic yard screen cage placed over the stream.

This species began to emerge between May 7 and 23 in most years, but the total number of flies was smaller when emergence began by May 10 than when it began on May 17 or later. The only exception to this occurred in 1938 when emergence began earlier and continued over a much longer period than usual. The main portion of the emergence ended between May 10 and 29 although occasional flies emerged as late as June 18. None of the new species was collected in 1942. Association of males and females of the new species was possible as both sexes emerged during the same period and as other species, emerging at the same time, were readily identified in both sexes.

On the warm afternoon of August 29, 1948, as I was walking through a wheat stubble-field on my farm located six miles southwest of McMinnville, Oregon, I became aware that I was in the midst of a dragonfly migration. I could see them all about me for a radius of perhaps seventy-five feet which was about the limit of my vision for an insect of this size. When first seen there was a considerable number passing toward the west with from thirty-five to fifty of the insects visible at any given moment but after about five minutes they began to thin out until only a few were visible. I then walked south for two hundred feet at which place another heavy concentration was encountered. After a short interval these thinned to a few stragglers. Thinking that the migration was about over I retraced my steps only to meet with another wave. It soon became apparent that the migration was taking place orer a wide front and that the insects tended to fly in groups over the valley floor.

During the Thirteenth International Congress of Zoology which closed at Paris on Tuesday, 27th July, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, holding its first meeting since the close of the war, put forward a comprehensive programme for the reform and development of Zoological Nomenclature.

Measures taken to reform procedures are designed to enable the Commission to reach decisions much more rapidly than has been possible in the past.

Keeping a supply of paradichlorohenezene or naphthalene in insect boxes for protection against dermestids has always been a problem. Small cloth bags or wire screen boxes are frequently used hut are a nuisance to fill and require several pins to hold them in place. The method used for protecting the collections at the Vineland Station Laboratory appears to be more convenient.

Rolls of dental cotton, which are about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, are cut into pieces two inches long and mounted crosswise on ordinary office pins. Paradichlorobenzene is melted (M.P. 53° C.), most conveniently in a can placed in a vessel of hot water, and the pieces of cotton are dipped into it. The cotton becomes saturated almost instantaneously and is laid on a board until the paradichlorobenzene solidifies.