Radionuclides may be used as ecological tracers to study trophic–level relationships. To use cesium-137 to investigate the role of the giant water bug, Lethocerus americanus (Leidy), in the food-web of a small pond, it was necessary to measure the elimination rate of the nuclide. The experimental determination of the elimination rate of cesium-137 in fourth instar and adult water bugs, and the calculation of the fraction of ingested food assimilated is described.

Light traps have long been used to indicate cutworm moth population, but a survey of the literature reveals no instance in which light trap catches have been compared with any other source of information regarding the moth population. It has apparently been assumed by all workers, the writer included, that a light trap record furnished a reliable random sample of the population. Certain data have recently accumulated, horvever, which make it desirable to question this assumption, and some of these data will be presented here.

In the Canadian Entomologist, 1892, pp. 193–197, the writer published some notes on New Mexico Heteroptera an Homoptera. The notes on the fifty-three species in the present paper are additional and complete the list, so far as the names can be obtained, of all the Hemiptera collected by the writer in New Mexico and Arizona.

Holcaspis Arizonica, n. sp.– Gall globular, 9 mm. diam, pale ochreous, not shiny, attached to the base of the petiole of a leaf of Quercus Arizonica, Sargent. There is a projecting point next to the place of insertion. Within, the gall is brown, fibrous, moderately dense, at least dithalamous.

Fly emerging April 19, two females. Body 3½ mm. long, wings 3⅔mm; antennæ 2 mm., 15-jointed, joint 3 considerably the longest. Length of joints in μ: (3·) 360, (4·) 240, (5·) 200, (15·) 170. The joints, especially the apical ones, with fine longitudinal ridges, between which are rows of minute punctures. Head ferruginous; thorax and abdomen piceous; margins of mesthorax, and two spots on scutellum, dull ferruginous; legs bright ferruginous; anterior tibiæ with an apical projection' anterior tibial spurs bent; claws of all the legs falciform, with a large triangular basal tooth.

The name cow grasshopper has been chosen for this insect because of the habit of the female in selecting cattle “chips” or dung in which to place her eggs. On account of this habit, cattle have become an important factor in the spread and perpetuation of the grasshopper and to associate it with the name of its unconscious benefactor seems appropriate.

For the material here reported upon I am indebted to Dr. L. H. Dunn, of the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory, and Prof. C. H. Vorhies, of the University of Arizona.

In the Canadian Entomologist, Vol. 26, page 184, the Rev. Thomas W. Fyles described a moth as new under the name of “Botysurticaloides.” Mr. Fyles has been so kind as to lend me his type for examination, and it proves to be identical with Metrea ostreonalis, described by Grote in “Papilio,” Vol. 2 p. 73, where he states that the type was taken by Mr. L. W. Goodell, in Amherst, Mass., and that he specimen, and also another one taken in Bangorm, Maine, by Mr. Fred. Eddy.

After a journey of ten miles over snow and snowbanks from four to eight feet deep, I arrived in the latter part of June, on my summer and fall collecting ground on the Fuloumne Meadows, which lie on the edge of the area wherein the high Sierra species of Lepidoptera are most numerous. The Paranassius was one of the first I began to collect, as the butterflies had just commenced to issue, and were flying in the grassy and shaded timber-covered portions of a rocky side hill slope.

Professor W.H. Brittain has sent me a small lot of Andrena collected this year, and among them I find a species so striking that it should be described at once. As I am leaving for Africa it will be impossible to deal with the rest of the collection at this time.

The larvæ of this Noctuid moth were again found at Ottawa the past season, in beds of Irises, on the grounds of the Central Experimental Farm. They were not, however, at all numerous, and did not do any appreciable harm this years. Two larvæ were collected on July 28, one of which was inflated; the other pupated on Aug. 1, the moth emerging on Sept. 7. Another larva was found on Aug. 4, the moth appearing on Sept. 15. The pupa of the former specimen was much larger than any of those obtained in 1903, an account of which appeared in the last Annual Report of the Entomological Society of Ontario. This pupa measured 30 mm. in length and 7.5 in width.

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.

Neottiglossa tumidifrons n. sp.

Head, with the portion before the vertex concave and bent dorvnwards, closely punctate above and on the sides, the punctations becoming coarse and uneven near the middle of the concavity. Lorver lateral margins of the head carinated, above which the juga are roundly thickened, the thickening extending without interruption to the extremities of the juga, which are contiguous beyond the tip of the tylus.

The North American species of the genus Callimorpha are exceedingly interesting both from their beauty and from the extreme variations to which some of the species are subject, and which has given rise not only tot he creation of numerous synonyms, but also to distinct species being regarded as merely varieties of other forms.

With ten specimens of fasciella and two of 5-notella before me, with scarcely a trace of variation in the ten, but with the two differing from each other somewhat and both differing very decidedly from the ten, I had no doubt as to the distinctness of the two species. A larger series, however, induces the belief that they belong to the same species. The difference between them may be thus stated: In fasciella the base and apex of the fore wings are brownish-gray, and between these portions are three brownish-gray and four white fasciæ, all very distinct and well defined. ln 5-notella the whole dorsal half of the wing is white, there is a small brown spot on the base of the costal margin, another further back, and stil1 further back another which in the middle of the wing is produced backwards to the gray-brown apical part of the wing, which encloses two small white costal streaks.

The identity of Scotogramma oregonica Grote has always been a matter of some doubt to taxonomists. Smith gave his idea of the species in a paper entitled “Notes on Mamestra trifolii Rott. and Its Allies” (1910, Ent. News, XXI, 357); Wolley-Dod (1913, Can. Ent., XLV, 31) surmises a mixture of species in Grote's type lot of material and states that the male type in the Neumoegen Collection at Brooklyn (now incorporated in the U. S. Natioonal Museum) is the same as Smith's morana (op. cit., p. 361) ; following Dod morana was made a variety of oregonica in the 1917 Barnes and McDunnough Check List.

Egg.—Barrel-shaped, the ends narrowing equally and rounded; the base flattened over a little space; from the edge of this start nine vertical and straight ribs, at first low, but gradually rising in elevation and after the middle rapidly, till at the top they are very prominent, and terminate abruptly about the rim of the depressed summit; these ribs are thin and grooved on both sides perpendicularly to the surface of the egg; between them the surface is a little excavated, and smooth; color green. Duration of this stage 5 days in May, 3 to 4 in July.

Young Yarva.—Length .08 inch; cylindrical, tapering posteriorly from 4th segment; each segment rounded; color greenish-brown, semitranslucent; furnished with ten rows of black curved hairs, of which two are close together on middle of dorsum, two are lateral above spiracles, one is partly in line with, partly below spiracles, and one below this; on 2 is a sub-oval black chitinous patch, with four hairs on either side the medio-dorsal line, three others in vertical line below the patch; 3 and 4 have five hairs on each side in vertical line, but from 5 to 12, while there are five hairs, they form two lines, the 1st, 3rd and 5th being in front part of the segment; the anal segment shows two hairs on the side, and a black dorsal patch, on either half of which are about five hairs; two small hairs over each foot and proleg; on 2 to 4 the hairs are curved forward, on the other segments back, but on all the lowest row is turned down; so on 2 to 4 the next row is turned down; head rounded, black, with a few black hairs. Duration of this stage in May 4 days, in August 3.

Mr. C. A. Frost, the coleopterist, to whom of recent years I have been indebted for many interesting and, indeed, rare Heteroptera, has again favored me with some unusual species taken by him this summer (1929), in Nova Scotia. Portaupique, so I learn from Mr. Frost, is on the North shore of Minas Basin, 30 miles west of Truro; Westchester is up in the hills at a lake in the spruce woods.

The within-plant spatial distribution of Limothrips denticornis Haliday eggs on spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) in North Dakota was examined during the growing seasons of 1987 and 1988. In both years, most eggs were found during inflorescence emergence (growth stages 10–10.5 on the Feekes scale), although eggs were detected both prior to and after these growth stages. Once inflorescence emergence was initiated, over 8.5% of the eggs were found in the top two leaf sheaths, with the majority in the flag leaf sheath. Over all barley growth stages, significantly more eggs (P≤0.05) were found in the middle third than in either the top or bottom third of the flag leaf sheath. No difference (P≥0.05) in the within-sheath location of eggs on lower leaves was detected.