Last instar larvae and the pupae of Gluphisia avimacula, Notodonta simplaria, Dasylophia thyatiroides and Hyparpax perophoroides are described, compared with those of related species, and in part figured. Various ecological aspects are discussed and host plant information is provided in each case, with comments on the number of generations, times of occurrence and, with respect to simplaria and thyatiroides, on the regional prevalence of melanism.

Serious damage to the seeds of wild rice, Zizania aquatica L., is caused annually by the larvae of a noctuid species hitherto unidentified and with little of its life-history known. In the summer of 1957 larvae reared from eggs found in the heads of wild rice were determined as of the species concerned, and in March, 1958 an adult reared from the same lot was identified by Dr. D. F. Hardwick, Entomology Division, Ottawa as of Apamea apamiformis (Guenée).

The four Jamaican species of Cyrtinus LeConte are briefly reviewed. Cyrtinus jamaicensis n. sp. and Cyrtinus granulifrons n. sp. are described, and additional distributional records are given for Cyrtinus sandersoni Howden and Cyrtinus farri Howden.

Entomologists will be interested to learn of the occurrence of a near relative of the Horn Fly, HŒmatobia serrata, in the middle of the great cranberry swamps of Northern Minnesota. These vast low areas extend for hundreds of square miles in the vicinity of the Lake of Woods. They are the favored home of the American moose, and the hope of obtaining some specimens of this animal for the museum of the University of Kansas led Professor L. L. Dyche of that institution to traverse these dangerous marshes. Professor Dyche has recently returned after remaining for over three months in the very centre of the swamps, camping upon the occasional sand ridges which cross the region; and to him I am indebted for specimens of a new HŒmatobia.

In a recent paper on the genus Chloroperla I divided this genus, as it had been used, into two genera; neither of which being a true Chloroperla, I proposed the names Isoperla and Alloperla. The character I used in this division was one proposed by Prof. Needham to separate the Perlini from the Nemourini. This is the condition of the median vein near the base of fore wings, whether united to the radius, or running parallel to the radius.

Leafhoppers of the genera Orocastus and Auridius are locally abundant in grassland regions in Western Canada. They are small insects, the males golden yellow and the females stramineous in colour. The two genera are distinguished from each other by characters of the internal male genitalia. The species are distinguished primarily by these characters and by the form of the seventh sternite of the female. There has been some confusion between the species, partly because the sexes were wrongly associated by some authors and partly because the extent of the individual variation was not appreciated fully. The following are descriptions and illustrations of the distinctive character; of the four species found in Canada, with notes on the distributions and variation. One species new to science is described and one species is reduced to synonymy.

Laboratory investigations were made to determine the persistence of aldicarb and its metabolites in soil (clay loam pH 6.8–7.2) and in water collected from fields. At dose rates of 15 and 20 p.p.m., aldicarb was not detectable in soil after 8 and 12 weeks, respectively. At 50 p.p.m., after 11 weeks chemically detectable amounts of the insecticide were present in the soil.

Soil samples were stored between 23° and 28 °C but temperature at times reached 32 °C.

In field water treated in the laboratory at 100 p.p.m. of aldicarb, the chemical and its metabolites were detectable at 0.4 p.p.m., 11 months later. Water was stored at 16°–20 °C and was exposed for 507.5 hours to sunlight.

Aldicarb was eluted readily with water from soil columns.

When aldicarb was applied as side dressing at the time of planting of sugarbeet roots and potatoes, residues of less than 0.05 p.p.m. were found in soil and potatoes at the time of harvest. One sugarbeet root sample contained 0.2 p.p.m. of the chemical and its metabolites.

Recent damage to sugar maple, Acer saccharurn Marsh., by pear thnps, Taeniothrips inconsequens, in the northeast of the United States and adjacent parts of Canada has led to much research on this pest (Teulon et al. 1993; Teulon and Cameron 1996; Parker and Skinner 1997). A detailed description of the univoltine pear thrips' life history is reported in Teulon et al. (1998). Although T: inconsequens is the dominant species in sugar maple, other thrips may also be important as herbivores, detritivores, or predators and need to be taken into account in sampling or monitoring programmes. This article describes the diversity of thrips in a sugar maple plantation in central Pennsylvania, United States.

The various characteristics used to describe Forcipatorina and to fix its limits with Clivinina are analyzed and checked against the different genera concerned. New definitions for the subtribes and a key to the genera included in Forcipatorina are given. It is shown that the genus Stratiotes Putzey s is heterogenous and must be divided into several genera, two of which are described as new: Kultianella and Whiteheadiana.

The location of types of Bruchus limbatus Horn, B. pruininus Horn, B. sordidus Horn, B. pauperculus LeConte, and B. distinguendus Horn is discussed, and lectotypes designated where needed. The confusion in American literature involving the names Bruchus obtectus Say, B. obsoletus Say, and B. distinguendus Horn is reviewed. Bruchus erythrocerus, inadvertently validated by Riley (1871), is synonymized with Meibomeus musculus (Say).

In order to establish a functional relationship between damaged pine tips apparently infested with Nantucket pine tip moth, Rhyacionia frustrana (Comstock), and within-tip larval and pupal population, X-ray techniques were used to determine numbers of actually infested tips and the numbers of tip moth immatures contained therein. Linear relationships existed between these variables and changes in tip moth density. The effect of different plantations, tip moth generations, season, and tree age did not significantly alter the observed relationships. Approximately 40% of the damaged (i.e. apparently infested) tips were actually infested, and these tips contained an average of 1.4 tip moth immatures per tip. The equation Y = −.509 +.57X estimates the number of tip moth immatures, given the number of apparently damaged tips per tree (r2 =.71).

As considerable doubt appears to exist with regard to the three species or races of Physonota described by say, Randall, and Walsh and Riley, and as I had in former years found a species of this genus to be rather common in the vicinity of Montreal, I endeavored during the past season to find it again, and, as far as my opportunities would permit, work up its life history.

Early in May I made a careful search in the locality where I had previously found it, but at this date its food plant had not yet appeared above ground. I tried again in June, the time at which I had formerly taken the first brood.

Sexual size dimorphism occurs in many species. Differences between males and females, in size or other characteristics, may result from sexual selection, fecundity selection, natural selection, non-adaptive processes, or a combination of these pressures (Darwin 1874; Selander 1966; Trivers 1976; Slatkin 1984; Shine 1989). In insects, females with large body size often produce more eggs than smaller females, and femalebiased sexual size dimorphism is commonly attributed to such fecundity selection (e.g., Preziosi and Fairbairn 1997; but see Leather 1988). Water boatmen are detrivorous or zoophagous aquatic insects often inhabiting small ponds of the Northern Hemisphere (Hungerford 1948; Nosil and Reimchen 2001). Female water boatmen are generally larger than males. In this note, I quantify the nature and magnitude of a previously undescribed sexual size dimorphism in a natural population of the water boatman Callicorixa vulnerata Uhler (Hemiptera: Corixidae). I tested for differences between males and females in mean trait size (body length, body weight, mid-leg tarsal length, mid-leg tarsal spine number), and also tested for sexual dimorphism in allometric relationships between tarsal traits and body length.

Pineus pineoides was found for the first time in North America in New Brunswick in 1948, on red spruce, Picea rubens Sarg. It is the first known species of Adelgidae in North America to complete its life cycle on spruce without producing galls or winged forms. The life history is compared with that in Europe. The first-instar nymph and the adult of the summer generation are described and compared with those from Europe.

During the course of investigations of the life history of the pine root collar weevil, Hylobius radicis Buchanan, in Wisconsin, a larval parasite was encountered by the junior author. The Braconid adults which emerged represent an undescribed species of the genus Bracon.

The discovery of Camilla glabra (Fallen) in Ottawa, Canada, is the first record of the existence in the New World of any member of the interesting little family Camillidae. A single male specimen taken June 15, 1954, by D. G. F. Cobb while collecting insects in her garden, would seem to indicate the species is established here.

The family Camillidae consists of the single genus Camilla Haliday, which for many years was assigned to the family Drosophilidae. Frey, (1921) considered it sufficiently differentiated from the Drosophilidae to warrant separate status and erected the family Camillidae to receive it. Duda (1934), Wheeler (1952, p. 164), and Collin (1956) all recognized the group as a family distinct from the Drosophilidae. More recently, Hennig (1958, p. 665) placed it as a separate family in the Drosophiloidea, pointing out that while it has certain characters in common with Curtonotidae and Drosophilidae, it shows even more affinities with Diastatidae and Ephydridae.