Seventeen new species of Scolytidae from Mexico are described. The new species represent the genera Neodryocoetes (4), Pseudopityophthorus (9), Pityoborus (3), and Prognathotrichus n. gen. (1). New locality records for several previously described species are included.

Many attempts have been made to overcome the difficulties attendant upon storing insect material over extended periods of time in small vials of alcohol. Cork stoppers fail to meet requirements for various reasons, while their substitution with rubber ones may introduce still further complications. Both are liable to shrink or to swell while either may be forced out of the vials as a result of variations in room temperature. In addition, neither can be readily marked in such a manner that the contents of the vials are permanently and plainly legible from above.

Austropsylla brevipecten gen. et sp. nov. is described from a single female specimen collected on a potoroo or rat-kangaroo. The genus is closest, perhaps, to Choristopsylla Jord. & Roths., and brings to nine the number of genera of Pygiopsyllidae to be found in Australia.

Eyes naked, with short lashes. Antennæ in the female simple. Palpi gray, the third joint very short. Collar whitish beneath, above bearing a transverse, partially interrupted black line. Thorax mingled light anddark gray; no prothoracic tuft, metathoracic tuft low and longitudinally furrowed; sides of the thorax deep black and very conspicuous. Abdomen light gray, with several slight dorsal black tufts, and one very strong one, tipped with white on the third segment.

Head and palpi dark brown sprinkled with gray. Primaries deep brown, somewhat paler in apical region where there is scattered ochreous scaling; two rather obscure whitish vertical streaks about the middle of the inner margin which in the middle of the wing connect with still more obscure oblique streaks from middle of costa which show a slight purplish metallic color; ocelloid region bordered by two broad metallic bars, more or less united above tornus; the contained area is slightly sprinkled with pale ochreous but contains no definite dark streaks ; apical area of costa with four short geminate white streaks, the first pair connecting with the inner ocelloid bar by a metallic streak, the middle pairs more or less joined basally by metallic scaling, and the outer pair giving rise to a metallic line which curves to outer margin and ends in a white dot; similar white dots occur at the outer ends of the ocelloid bars; fringes with a dark basal line, followed by a pale area and again darker outwardly, sprinkled with white scaling opposite the above mentioned white dots. Secondaries deep smoky; fringes pale with dark basal line. Beneath dull smoky with white costal streaks of primaries repeated. Expanse 10-11 mm.

Some time ago, through the kindness of Mr. Tams of the British Museum, I was enabled to have specimens compared with the types of dealbana Wlk. and similisana Wlk. and the genitalia of both types examined. The result is a confirmation of Heinrich's placement in his revisioni, dealbana falling to glaciana Moesch. and similisana to bipartitana Clem.

The genus described below appears most closely related to the genus Gronocarus Schaeffer (1927, p. 213). The description is based on a unique female collected in eastern Texas within a few miles of the Louisiana state line.

Mites collected from 69 Larus delawarensis Ord nests on Granite Island, Lake Superior, northwestern Ontario, during the summers of 1972 and 1973 showed phenological relationships with the breeding cycle of the gulls. The populations of five selected mite genera varied in relation to nest initiation, egg laying, and egg hatching periods of the gulls. Moisture within the nests significantly affected mite population densities, whereas nest density did not.

Phyciodes tharos var. arctica Dos Passos. This recently described Newfoundland race (1935, Can. Ent. LXVII, 87) was differentiated from the typical form largly on the strength of the more orange coloration of the underside, especially of the hindwings, the author stating it to be “zinc orange” as compared with the “naples yellow” of tharos proper.

The following notes were compiled while working over a collection of Lepidoptera taken by me in the Yellowstone Park, Wyoming and the Upper Gallatin Canyon, Montana during the latter half of July and the first part of August of the summer of 1928.

Our study of the Hat Creek amber (Poinar et al. 1999) was undertaken to determine the range of the biota in the resin, to identify the plant that produced the resin, and to assess the future implications of these significant deposits. The study was in no way “compromised” by providing an alternative interpretation of the systematic position of the genus Sphecomyrma Wilson and Brown.

Subspeciation in the circumpolar Nephrotoma lundbecki is discussed for a population from south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, described here as N.l. alexanderi. For 18 nearctic Nephrotoma species new distribution records are presented, mainly from the northern Nearctic, adding considerably to our knowledge of the distribution of these species. Included is the second nearctic record of the palaearctic species Nephrotoma cornicina (L.).

Two new species of aphids are described from Manitoba, Acyrthosiphon assiniboinensis new species from Potentilla fruticosa L., and Masonaphis pinawae new species from Ledum groenlandicum Oeder.

The Geometrid moth described below cannot be placed in any European or American genus known to me, and I therefore venture to institute a new genus for its reception.

The genus belongs to the Ennominœ, and the absence of a tongue and the possession of the dordal abdominal tufts serve to separate it readily from all the other Americal genera of the subfamily, as none of them, I believe, posses these two characters in combination.