This laboratory study confirmed that the strategy of adult terrestrial Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Say); Coleoptera Chrysomelidae) to survive the threat of drowning in water is based on avoidance of water crossings. It also showed that beetles at the surface of a body of water after failing to avoid it, long considered limited to passive floating and phoretic transport were in fact likely to rely on a complex fight or flee response. Beetles showed capacity to swim in a pattern similar to land foraging beetles. Beetles also tolerated submergence and walked underwater. These active behaviours should improve their probability of finding shore or refuge for longer survival. Results confirmed that Colorado potato beetles are likely to accumulate near water features in the potato agro-ecosystem landscape but suggest that successful crossings and colonisation of crops on the other side are more likely than previously expected. On a larger scale, new information provided by this study combined with our knowledge of dominant winds and currents should make it possible for future research to better predict the probability of surviving encounters with water and the orientation of invasive Colorado potato beetle colonisers dispersing at the surface of bodies of water.

Widespread defoliation of sugar maple stands due to pear thrips, Taeniothrips inconsequens (Uzel), feeding occurred in Massachusetts in 1987 and 1988. To assess the role of tree health as a possible cause of these outbreaks, an experiment was conducted in sugar maple stands in Massachusetts in 1990. Sleeve cages were placed on mature sugar maples and stocked with adult female pear thrips to determine the relation between root starch reserves (an index of tree health) and thrips fecundity. The experiment was run at four sites, assessing both root starch levels and thrips fecundity on individual trees. Each stand showed a range from high to low starch values and trees at each end of the root starch index spectrum were selected for use in the experiment at each site. Analysis of data showed no differences between sites, apart from those linked to starch levels, and found thrips fecundity to be positively correlated with higher starch reserves. The results of this experiment do not support the original hypothesis that declining tree health was a causal factor in pear thrips outbreaks on sugar maple in Massachusetts.

The bee-genus Anthidium is not very well represented in New Mexico, the following being all yet observed.

(1.) Anthidium larreœ, n. sp.— ♀. Length about 12Û mm., fairly stout, but the abdomen not subglobose; black, with yellow markings, those of the thorax recalling Steniolia duplicata. Head large, face nearly square, moderately shining, closely punctured, sides of vertex with punctures of unequal size; end of mandibles not developed into distinct teeth. Antennæ short, black.

A new subgenus is proposed for the following species of Ammophila: opulenta Guérin-Méneville, melanaria Dahlbom, binodis (Fabricius), aureonotata Cameron, catamarcensis Schrottky, willinki Menke, eximia Lepeletier, auromaculata Perez, and asperata Fox. A key to species is provided, with comparative and distributional notes. Ammophila willinki from Argentina and Brazil is described as new. Lectotypes are established for the following species: A. bimaculigera Strand, A. melanaria Dahlbom, A. miliaris Cameron, A. iridipennis Cameron, A. aureonotata Cameron, and A. asperata Fox. The following new synonymy is proposed: A. bimaculigera Strand (= opulenta Guérin-Méneville); A. lobicollis Cameron (= melanaria Dahlbom); Pelopoeus abbreviatus Fabricius, A. guiana Cameron, A. oxystoma Cameron (= binodis (Fabricius)); A. eugenia Smith, Sphex nigrocinctus Fernald, A. friedrichi Schrottky, A. trimaculigera Strand (= eximia Lepeletier); A. giacomellii Schrottky, (= auromaculata Perez); A. miliaris Cameron, A. iridipennis Cameron, A. velutina Schrottky (?= melanaria Dahlbom).

This paper includes descriptions of a new species of Iziphya Nevsky and one of Euschizaphis Hille Ris Lambers. The former genus is well represented in North America, but Euschizaphis, which is best known for its association with the Juncaginaceae, has not been previously recorded from the western hemisphere.

Iziphya punctatella, new species

Apterous Viviparous Female.–Colour when alive: Ground colour of head and body yellow with black spots around the bases of most of the setae (Fig. 4). Antennae dark except for the basal half of segment III which is yellow; apex of rostrum dark; legs black except apical two-thirds of tibiae which are colourless. Colour when macerated: Essentially as when alive, but yellow areas colourless or nearly so.

A method has been described for the rearing of European red mite wherein the temperature, light, and air humidity were controlled. It consisted of a sealed glass tube containing an apple twig with a mite infested leaf. The tube was ventilated with air of the desired humidity and the leaf was kept alive by inserting the end of the twig into daily-changed tap water.

The North American species of Trichoceridae belong to three genera, Diazosma Bergroth (subsinuata Alexander), Paracladura Brunetti (trichoptera Osten Sacken) and the dominant Trichocera Meigen, with numerous species, some of which are widely distributed throughout the Holarctic Region. The scope of the family, its phylogenetic relationships, and a key to the known genera, are all discussed in a recent paper by the writer. (The Trichoceridae of Australia; Proc. Linnean Soc. N. S. W., 51 : 299—304; 1926) and need not be considered further at this time.

Herewith I offer descriptions of three new species of dragon-flies of the subfamily Gomphinæ of Odonata. Figures of the appendages of all will appear in my forthcoming handbook of the dragon-flies of North America.

Gromphus lentulus, n. sp.

Colours obscure (due in part to fading of specimen); face obscure yellowish, shining; frons above and occiput and the ridges above the lateral ocelli yellow, the remainder of the vertex brownish. Prothorax brownish, with a double median spot of yellow on the dorsum. Thorax obscure yellowish, with a faint indication of a pair of narrow stripes of brown beside the middorsal carina, and of broader antehumeral and humeral stripes; a brown pale line on the third lateral suture.

During 1992 and 1993, we studied the life cycle of Lambdina athasaria (Walker) developing on eastern hemlock, Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière, in Connecticut. The geometrid was univoltine, overwintering as a pupa. Adults emerged during 4 weeks in May and June after hemlock budbreak. Males emerged significantly earlier than females, and both sexes emerged earlier in 1993 than in 1992. Males flew for 4–5 weeks annually. Based on measurements of head capsule width, larvae had five or six instars, which fed from June to October. Early instars ate new growth, and older ones fed on old growth. Until mid-August, larval development was more advanced in 1993 than in 1992. Larvae descended from trees in September and October to pupate in the duff beneath trees. Lambdina athasaria can be distinguished from congeneric species that feed on conifers by its overwintering stage, flight period, larval size, and host.

Five insecticides (Baygon, diazinon, Dursban, Furadan, and menazon), previously shown to have some effect on control of the balsam woolly aphid, Adelges piceae (Ratz.), on branches of Abies balsamea (L.) Mill., have been tested more intensively. Individual trees were sprayed from the ground with 1.0, 0.5, or 0.25 litre of solution containing 5% active ingredient (an approximate per acre dosage rate of 12 to 25 lb). Dursban, Baygon, and diazinon caused 85, 75, and 72% mortality respectively. Furadan and menazon were less effective, causing 56 and 34% mortality.

During studies on the aster yellows virus in the Niagara Peninsula of Ontario, the dryinid parasite Epigonatopus plesius (Fenton), has been observed since 1956 on the nymphs and adults of the six-spotted leafhopper, Macrosteles fascifrons (Stål). During 1956 adult females of E. plesius reared from this host were identified by Mr. K. V. Krombein of the U.S. National Museum, Washington, D.C. Dr. W. R. M. Mason (1957) Entomology Division, Ottawa, wrote, “This is a very rare species. There are only two collections in Washington and only yours in the Canadian National Collection”.

The effect of a violent hailstorm on Camnula pellucida Sc. was noted at 2:15 P. M. on July 6, 1930, at a time when enough instruments were on hand to make a few records. The area was an observation station on the open range in Chilcotin, British Columbia, at an elevation of 3,400 feet; range cover was slight, consisting of a closely cropped, overgrazed turf of Poa running to an alkaline patch of Distichlis.

Until recently I have been applying the name caryaefoliella Clem. to the common species of eastern Ontario, the cases of which are found on hickory (C. glabra and C. cordiformis) and which I mentioned and figured in one of my previous papers (1933, Can. Ent., LXV, 161, Pl. X, figs. 19-21). However in early June, 1944, Mr. T. N. Freeman collected a number of cases on shag-bark hickory (C. ovata) at Pt. Rowan in southern Ontario which produced adults very similar in color and maculation, it is true, to our eastern Ontario species, but differing markedly in male genitalic characters.

The chemical composition of plants is one of the major factors influencing their acceptability as food by insects. The interrelationships among these chemicals and between them and insect predators is very complex (Davis 1968). Some are inherently toxic to insects (Singleton and Kratzer 1969); others inhibit feeding (Hsiao and Fraenkel 1968); and still others act both as toxicants and as repellents (Bennett 1965). Apparently, no class of chemical compound is without representation in this regard.

Studies by Eaton (1884), Dodds (1923) and Needham (1905, 1927) have contributed much to our knowledge of the nymphal forms of Ephemerella occurring in Western North America. Needham's recent paper on “The Rocky Mountain species of the Mayfly genus Ephemerella” contains a valuable discussion of the nymphs of that region and is the first attempt to treat of the species in a comparative manner.

This paper continues the enumeration of the species of Halictus found in Maine, begun in the Canadian Entomologist for February, 1905, page 40.

Halictus similis, Smith, ♀ ♂.— A very common species in this locality, taken from June 19th to August 24th. It visits a great variety of flowers, as the blackberry, Iris versicolor, Sagittaria latifolia, Aralia hispida, Cornus Canadensis, and teh thistles and goldenrods. Professor Cockerell, who has examined Smith's type in the British Museum, states that the Maine specimens agree with it in all the more important characters.

Holotypes, lectotypes, and syntypes of pyralid moths of the subfamilies Nymphulinae, Scopariinae, Cybalomiinae, Odontiinae, Evergestinae, and Pyraustinae studied by the author at the Zoological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Leningrad in 1964 are catalogued. Types of 93 names are discussed; lectotypes are designated for 54 nominal species; 13 nominal species are listed for which type material could not be located. Four names are considered to be nomina nuda.