The different types of individuals among the progeny of the western tent caterpillar, Malacosoma pluviale (Dyar), are concentrated in different parts of the egg mass. The most agile progeny come from some of the first eggs laid, and the least viable are among the last deposited. There is evidence that this serial arrangement stems from unequal partitioning of the maternal food reserves during egg production: a relationship similar to that recently demonstrated in the spruce budworm by I. M. Campbell. In M. pluviale, however, there also is evidence that the differences in feeding rate and food capacity displayed by the different types of females during their own larval stage affect the proportions of the various types of progeny per egg mass as well as the viability of consecutive groups of eggs within the mass. Although these maternal influences are not heritable in the usual genetic sense, they are clearly transmissible between generations. And field studies have shown that their more adverse consequences for local populations are cumulative and ultimately lethal.

Six species of Proctolaelaps, found associated with insect pests of pine forests in the southeastern United States, are described and illustrated. These are: P. bickleyi (Bram), P. fiseri Samšinák, P. hystrix (Vitzthum), and three new species, P. dendroctoni, P. dioryctriae, and P. hystricoides. Newly recorded for North America are P. fiseri, P. hystrix, and P. ulmi Hirschmann; distributions for the last two species include British Columbia. Garmania striata Westerboer is synonymized under P. bickleyi; the problem of the lewisi species complex, which includes P. bickleyi, P. lewisi (Garman and McGregor), and P. utahensis (Chant), is noted.

Although the food habits of these and related mites are mostly unstudied, tentative observations indicate that some species are commensals and others are predators of their insect associates. Investigation of such mites and their relationships with forest pests is urged.

Variation in thoracic color and the role of color in reproduction were studied in the field in one population of the damselfly, Argia apicalis. Mature males and females were individually marked, and observed near noon on 47 consecutive days, and hourly on three. Males occurred in two color phases: bright blue, and gray-black, neither of which could be positively associated with age or mating. Change was not a single step from blue to finally dark or vice versa but often involved intervening changes in both directions with a maximum of eight in 12 days. Dark was the more temporary condition. Females occurred in three color phases: brown, turquoise, gray-black. As with males, no one phase could be positively associated with age or mating, and multi-directional change occurred after sexual maturity.

Dead pinned individuals, modified or not, were presented to living males who: (1) advanced sexually toward motionless models, (2) discriminated intact females from males, (3) reacted sexually more frequently to brown than to the other normal female colors, (4) responded sexually to a female thorax and one wing almost as frequently as to a normal female, (5) accurately discriminated a female thorax and one wing from that of a male. The blue-tipped male abdomen aided but was not indispensable for sex recognition. Dorsal and lateral thoracic color were equally important and elicited male sexual response in their entirety rather than by particular pattern. Sex discrimination broke down when the normal thoracic color was obliterated with paint regardless of its color, but a thorax painted white was an "over-optimal" attraction suggesting the importance of light intensity.

Log preference of the ambrosia beetle, Trypodendron lineatum (Oliv.) (Coleoptera: Scolytidae), was studied by flight traps, attack density counts, and forced attacks, on 200 Douglas fir felled over a ten-month period. During heavy spring flights in late May, the beetles attacked logs from the August through January fellings, but not those cut February through May. At the end of the first brood-rearing period, parts of logs protected by plastic sheeting from earlier flights were attacked in this same pattern. Beetles confined on logs at different times attacked in essentially the same way as free beetles. It is concluded that felling date greatly influences subsequent attack. However, there was considerable variability in attack within groups of trees cut the same dates. Furthermore, attack on very short (1- and 3-foot) sections from the February fellings, when the corresponding logs were unattractive, showed that a factor other than time of felling also influenced log attractiveness. Some information was secured on flight and attack of other scolytid beetles in relation to felling date of logs.

The spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana (Clemens), was reared on a synthetic diet. Comparison of two successive laboratory generations reared on synthetic diet and on frozen balsam fir buds showed that diet-fed insects had a higher survival, developed faster, were heavier, mated more successfully, and were more fecund.

The present work demonstrates how important food quality is to an insect. When the dietary inadequacy in an artificial food was dilution of its nutrient content to 85, 70 and 50%, respectively, fifth-instar Celerio euphorbiae (Linnaeus) ate progressively more food but they gained no more body weight on one diet than on another. The rate of food intake depended on nutrient concentration. On all nutrient levels the larvae were about 20% efficient in converting the foodstuff into body material and the body content of protein did not differ significantly.

When the dietary inadequacy was immoderate proportions of several nutrients, the effects were not so clearly marked; nevertheless, the rate of food intake of the larvae could explain their body weight. The tendency seemed to be for the larvae to eat less and to gain less weight on the imbalanced diet than on an adequate diet. Moreover, conversion of foodstuff into body material did not seem as efficient on the imbalanced diet as on the control.

The ecological significance of food quality suggested by the first example is that the destructiveness of phytophagous insects, for example, may depend in part on the degree of succulence and corresponding nutrient concentration of food plant tissues; and by the second example, that perhaps nutritional imbalances may play a part in controlling the potential destructiveness of insect populations.

The orientation of mature, female Frontinella communis (Hentz.) on horizontal sheet webs was recorded in the field. Spiders fully exposed to direct solar radiation oriented independently of the sun at ambient air temperatures from 18 to 27 °C., but at higher temperatures, corresponding to web temperatures from 30 to 37 °C., they oriented toward the sun's disk in both the horizontal and vertical planes. The orientation of spiders in shade was independent of the sun's azimuth over the entire range of air temperatures experienced (18 to 34 °C). During light to moderate rainfall spiders oriented in the direction of the prevailing wind and the vertical displacement of the body axis from the typically horizontal position varied directly with rainfall intensity.

A new species of Perniphora Ruschka reared in Maine, U.S.A., and New Brunswick, Canada, from logs of white and yellow birch infested with ambrosia beetles, especially Trypodendron betulae Swaine, is described and illustrated. It is compared with the only other described species, Perniphora robusta Ruschka, a Palearctic species which has been reared, according to Ruschka (1923), Novak (1960a, b), Balazy (1963) and Hedqvist (1963), from a number of ambrosia beetles, especially Trypodendron lineatum Oliv., in Germany, White Russia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

Water-stress in young apple trees potted in sandy soil caused a six-fold retardation in Panonychus ulmi (Koch) population growth during two generations in a greenhouse. A considerably smaller retardation effect on the population growth occurred on water-stress trees growing in a compost-sand soil mixture. The leaves from moist compost-sand soil trees contained nearly the same percentage of nitrogen as those from water-stress trees, thus it is believed the detrimental effect of water-stress is caused by the inability of the mites to secure sufficient food supplies for maximum reproduction and growth.

Both sexes of a new species of Sphecomyia from central British Columbia are described. The species is compared with S. pattonii Will. and S. dyari Shan., its closest known relatives.

Dermestid larvae, Trogoderma versicolor (Creutzer), and adult American cockroaches, Periplaneta americana (Linné), were affected by ruby laser pulses of two intensities, 0.06 ± 0.04 per 10−7 second duration and 0.57 ± 0.06 joules per 0.2 milliseconds. Laser impact areas were 1.5 mm. in diameter. The first intensity, directed at cephalic regions of dermestid larvae, caused mortality in 3–48 hours. The same intensity directed at larval mid-abdominal areas caused visible outer integument and body-hair scorching, cessation of feeding, growth rate, and movement, and loss of negative phototactic responses. Directed at posterior abdominal regions of larvae, it caused damage to the epidermal layer noticeable in four succeeding moults. It caused temporary (10-15 min.) immobility and loss of negative phototaxis when directed at pro-thoracic regions of cockroach adults. P. americana adults were more severely affected by the second laser treatment, exhibiting immobility, loss of negative phototaxis, and cessation of eating. Total mortality in the five treated specimens occurred in 8-14 days as compared with 45-68 days in controls.

The seasonal development of N. swainei was recorded in northwestern Quebec for six consecutive years from 1956 to 1961. Larvae normally spun cocoons during September when temperatures were usually below the optimum for survival. An earlier and more favourable spinning period depended principally upon an early adult emergence which, in turn, was governed by prevailing temperatures, the degree of shading of the humus, the presence of encapsulated tachinid parasites, the prior period spent in prolonged diapause, and the geographic origin of the specimens. It was concluded that early emergence of adults followed by rapid development of the immature stages for successive years are prerequisites for epidemics of N. swainei in northwestern Quebec, and are unlikely in very dense jackpine stands.

Eubasilissa rahtkirani n. sp. is here described from the Nepalese Himalayas.

In planning control programs for the apple maggot, fairly precise information on the emergence and movements of the adult is required. Generally records of emergence are obtained by the use of cages which trap the flies as they emerge from the soil. Bait lures have also been used and Neilson (1960) and others have described their methods. The construction of the cages, their establishment within the orchard. and their careful examination each day for removal of flies is time consuming. The hanging of pans within apple trees containing liquid bait lures is also troublesome and time consuming. The lures require frequent replenishing and become diluted in rainy weather and evaporate in fine weather. Searching for maggot adults in the bottom of thc pans among other fauna is time consuming.

p. 1496, heading, top of page–For “Tabaninoe” read “Tabaninae”.