Sex attractants were demonstrated in extracts of virgin females from four species, representing three genera, of elaterids. Each attractant was species specific. An olfactometer is described that permitted paper chromatograms of the extracts to be bio-assayed for pheromone activity. RF values of the attractants from the four species are compared.

The application of Dyar's Law to lepidopterous larvae has been discussed by numerous investigators, who have shown that in many species the head-widths follow a regular geometrical progression in successive instars. Taylor reviews Dyar's Law thoroughly and tests it out on the sawfly, Phyllotoma nemorata (Fallen). The same author examines Dyar's measurements on 46 species of sawfly larvae and concludes that Dyar's Law holds as well for the sawfly larvae as for the 28 species of lepidopterous larvae on which the rule was originally based.

Field bioassays were used to assess the toxicities of four formulated insecticides to representative stream invertebrates. Toxicities (48-h LC50) after a 1-h application period ranged from 2.0 to 7.1 μg/L for permethrin, 82 to 284 μg/L for fenitrothion, 344 to 1276 μg/L for aminocarb, and 251 to 1504 μg/L for mexacarbate. Invertebrates drifted at concentrations of permethrin greater than 0.5 μg/L, and at concentrations of fenitrothion, aminocarb, and mexacarbate greater than 10 μg/L. An aerial application of 280 g AI/ha fenitrothion with no stream buffer was made to compare bioassay results with impact to aquatic invertebrates under operational spray programs. Concentrations of fenitrothion peaked 30 min after spray at 31.0 μg/L and declined to less than 1.0 μg/L within 14 h. Numbers of drifting invertebrates increased 20-fold 3 h after spray and declined to before-spray numbers within 24 h. Mortalities of caged invertebrates in the stream ranged from 0% for Pycnopsyche sp. to 16% for Simulium venustum (Say). The field bioassay accurately predicted the impacts of fenitrothion on stream invertebrates in this situation.

Douglas-fir cones were collected from 17 seed orchards in California, Oregon, and Washington in the fall of 1983. Cones were completely dissected and seed losses ascribed to the Douglas-fir cone gall midge (Contarinia oregonensis (Foote)), the Douglas-fir seed chalcid (Megastigmus spermotrophus (Wachtl)), the Douglas-fir cone moth (Barbara colfaxiana (Kearfott)), and the fir coneworm (Dioryctria abietivorella (Groté)). There appear to be great differences between orchards, but overall C. oregonensis and M. spermotrophus collectively destroyed approximately 70% of the filled seed. Physiographic province significantly (P<0.05) explained variation in damage by all insect species between seed orchards. In general, damage by all species increased from northern provinces to southern mountainous provinces. Damage by C. oregonensis and B. colfaxiana appeared to be related to land use or management factors, as well.

Most Empididae are predators on living insects, but a few instances of other feeding habits have been discovered. It is shown that Anthalia bulbosa (Ocydromiinae) eats the pollen of several flowers, and other possible cases of pollen-eating in Ocydromiinae and Empidinae are discussed. Micropborus obscurus (Empidinae) feeds on dead insects trapped in spiders’ webs, in agreement with Laurence’s finding for M. crassipes; and several reports of Clinoceratinae feeding on dead insects at the water’s edge are assembled. This diversity of feeding habit finds a parallel in Ceratopogonidae.In Empididae the protein-rich meal, whether of insect prey, dead insects, or dead pollen, is taken in typical cases by both males and females, as would be expected on systematic grounds. The sexual differentiation of hunting and feeding habits (males hunting, perhaps not feeding; females non-hunting, receiving prey by transfer at mating) is a specialized feature restricted to the Empis–Hilara–Rhamphomyia group (Empidinae).

The predaceous mite Balaustium putmani Smiley was studied in the laboratory and in apple orchards in southern Ontario. A rearing technique was devised which facilitated the study of the life history and behaviour of individual mites.

Temperature and moisture influenced the development and hatching of eggs. In the presence of water, development proceeded more rapidly at the higher temperature of the 10°–25°C range tested. In the absence of water no development occurred. Larval B. putmani are free-living predators and although some were observed feeding periodically on pollen grains, they could not survive solely on this diet. All three motile stages are predators of a wide range of small, soft-bodied arthropods, but feed mainly on eriophyids and phytophagous tetranychid mites. The rate of consumption of the eggs and motile stages of the European red mite was determined for each motile stage at 20° and 25°C. Insemination is by externally deposited spermatophores and in the adult females, no facultative parthenogenesis was evident.

Natural infestations of cereal aphids caused significant reductions in grain yield in field plots of early and late cultivars of barley, wheat, and oats in southwestern Quebec. Severely reduced grain yields resulted when caged plants of wheat and late cultivars of barley and oats were artificially infested, but early cultivars of barley and oats were less affected. The percentage protein of grain was significantly reduced in all crops, but wheat and late oats were most affected.

Toxicities and teratogenic effects on Musca domestica L. of methyl and ethyl esters of fatty acids have been described. In general, esters of fatty acids containing 10 or fewer carbon atoms in the chain are toxic and melanogenic. Esters of higher members are less toxic, but melanogenic. However, esters of acids containing 13 or more carbon atoms in the chain show special interactions with insects, and methyl trans-2-tridecenoate has a teratogenic effect on the developing wing of the house fly.

This note reports the first in vitro oviposition and rearing of a parasitic insect, the endoparasitoid wasp Itoplectis conquisitor (Say), a male, on an artificial host consisting of an encapsulated synthetic, or meridic (Dougherty 1959, p. 53), medium.

Parasitic insects, of course, have been reared in vitro on meridic diets (House 1954; Yazgan 1972; Thompson 1975). Some were reported to oviposit into artificial objects (Arthur et al. 1972; Rajendram and Hagen 1974; Hoffman et al. 1975). Trichogramma pretiosum Riley laid viable eggs and development to adults occurred in small wax-resin spheres filled with host haemolymph (Hoffman et al. 1975).

The life-history, habits, and development of Spilochalcis side (Walk.) (torvina Cress.) were investigated at Belleville during studies on the parasites of needle miners, Recurvaria spp., attacking lodgepole pine, Pinus contorta Dougl. var. latifolia Engelm.

Burks (1940) recorded this species as a parasite of species of the following families of Lepidoptera: Noctuidae, Gelechiidae, Eucosmidae, Glyphipterygidac, Plutellidae, Ypononleutidae, Coleophoridae, and Lyonetiidae. He also recorded it from Coleoptera (Curculionidae) and from Hymenoptera (Ichneumonidae and Braconidae). Doner (1936) stated that it parasitized small numbers of pupae of the cherry casebearer, Coleophora pruniella Clem., each year from 1930 to 1933 at the University of Wisconsin Experiment Station at Sturgeon Bay, Door County, Wisconsin. It was reared at Belleville on pupae of Depressaria heracliana (L.), Anagasta kühniella (Zell.), Galleria mellonella L., and Pyrausta nubilalis (Hbn.) (Lepidoptera); in the cocoons of Apanteles atalantae (Pack.), A. congregatus (Say), and A. glomeratus (L.) (Hymenoptera); and in an unidentified coleopterous casebearer.

Egg production in Neodiprion swainei may be severely reduced by food quality and quantity, tachinid parasitism, and prolonged diapause. Since these and other agents may affect the sawfly both lethally and sublethally and may operate differentially against males and females, population losses are not adequately expressed in terms of numbers of individuals. However, reduction of the potential number of eggs the population could produce provides an integrated measure of these effects. One example, from an experiment in which larvae were fed various quantities and types of foliage, demonstrates that loss of reproductive potential is several times as great as the loss of individuals and indicates that the latter seriously underestimates the importance of food in population events.Cocoon diameter and fecundity are closely related. In a Saguenay Valley population, fecundity, cocoon diameter, and deviations from the regression line were bimodally distributed, indicating a mixture of two types of individuals differing in egg production characteristics. Families within a single population differed from each other by as much as 14 eggs in the elevation of the regression line; this was more than the observed difference in elevation between populations. A single regression equation satisfactorily predicted fecundity in one Quebec and a Wisconsin population, but was unsuitable for two other Quebec populations, each of which required its own equation. Among insects of common size, mean egg length varied inversely with fecundity, but it is uncertain whether differences in egg size were responsible for variation in the fecundity-cocoon diameter relationship.

A simple and inexpensive olfactometer based on that of Gaston and Shorey (1964) is described for bioassaying the sex pheromone of the eastern spruce budworm. The number of males buzzing (rapidly beating their wings while circling on the substrate) after the introduction of the sample into the airstream of the olfactometer was used as measure of response. Males held under continuous illumination showed maximum response when 2 to 3 days old. Under natural lighting males showed a circadian rhythm, with peak response shortly after dark and a minor peak in mid-morning. Since per cent response under continuous illumination exceeded the maximum response under natural lighting, it is recommended that bioassays be carried out with 2- to 3-day-old males held under continuous illumination.

Approximately 32 million cocoons of 11 species of spruce- and pine-feeding sawflies were collected in Europe and Japan from 1933 to 1940 and sent to the Belleville laboratory for rearing parasites for release in Canada against the European spruce sawfly, Diprion hercyniae (Htg.). Over half a million of the cocoons were Diprion polytomum (Htg.) and the parasites that emerged from these were discussed in previous papers (Finlayson and Reeks, 1936; Finlayson and Finlayson, in preparation). In addition to cocoons, almost half a million eggs of Neodiprion sertifer (Geoff.) were collected in Europe and reared to obtain egg parasites.

Random counts of the white grubs, Phyllophaga fusca Froelich and P. anxia LeConte, in a permanent meadow did not conform to the Poisson distribution, there being an excess of uninfested and highly infested sample units over the expected number. But when the negative binomial series was fitted to the observed distribution, the discrepancies were not significant when tested by chi-square. Using a common k, the distribution of the various stages may be described by expansion of (q-p)−k, when values of k are as follows: egg 0.15, first instar 0.41, second instar 1.30, third instar 2.00, pupa 1.62, teneral adult 1.30. Aggregation resulted from the clumping of eggs at oviposition, and randomness increased with dispersal of the larvae. For all stages, the variance was proportional to a fractional power of the mean. Three transformations are offered for stabilizing the variance of field counts.

Pear psylla, Cacopsylla pyricola (Förster) (Hemiptera: Psyllidae), is a pest of pears, Pyrus L. (Rosaceae), throughout North America and western Europe. Previous studies in our laboratory showed that males of the overwintering form (winter morphotype) were attracted to volatile chemicals from pear shoots infested with post-diapause females. The current study shows that males of the summer morphotype also are attracted to volatiles from female-infested host material. Older females (8–10 d old) were significantly more attractive to males than younger (2–5 d old) females. Both virgin and mated females attracted male psylla. Volatiles from female summerforms attracted males even in the absence of host-plant material, and both living and freshly killed females were attractive. Our results indicate that female C. pyricola emit a volatile sex attractant, and the results of the studies further define the life-history conditions in female pear psylla that lead to male attraction.

The Carabidae (Coleoptera) are a diverse family of beetles with almost 300 species identified in Nova Scotia, Canada. Carabid beetle communities have been studied in several agricultural systems, but not wild blueberries, an important crop in eastern Canada. In the interest of potentially developing conservation biological control programs in wild blueberry, we collected Carabidae in crop (fruit-bearing) and sprout (vegetative) blueberry fields in Nova Scotia in order to assess species diversity and abundance over space and time. Over 3200 specimens were collected, representing 51 species. A large portion of collected specimens (39%) were nonnative, and the most abundant species were generally predacious and synanthropic. Species diversity tended to be higher near forest edges than further into fields, but not for all abundant species. Several of the most prominent predators showed significant differences in preference of crop versus sprout fields, distribution throughout fields, and seasonable abundance. These findings have implications for conservation biological control efforts with carabid beetles against several insect pests in wild blueberry.

The Nearctic species of the elaterid genus Athous east of the Rocky Mountains are revised. Of the 16 included species, two are described as new (neacanthus known from southern Quebec to northern Georgia and orvus known from Nova Scotia to Michigan to Virginia) and two species are transferred from Denticollis, namely, productus (Randall) and quadrosa Becker (as a new junior synonym of A. appalachius Van Dyke). Other new synonymies are: carolinus Van Dyke as a junior synonym of acanthus (Say), erebus Van Dyke of posticus (Melsheimer), and bipunctatus Provancher of productus (Randall). The European species campyloides is known from North America from near Quebec City and in the Canadian Maritime Provinces. Neotypes are designated for the five species described by Say and Randall and for one described by Melsheimer; lectotypes, when needed, are designated for LeConte’s, Melsheimer’s, and Candèze’s species. A key to the species is presented and the salient features and distribution maps for each species are included. Brief notes are given on three western species of Athous: two common species (rufiventris (Eschscholtz) and nigropilis Motschulsky) that are occasionally found east of the Rockies and orophilus Harold, which is known only by the type from the Bitter Root Mountains. Brief discussions are included of two European species, vittatus (Fabricius) and subfuscus (Müller), which have been intercepted at various eastern ports in Canada and the United States, but which have not become established in North America.

Flea beetle (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) species and numbers were determined from yellow sticky traps (n=11 180) set out in canola (Brassica Linnaeus, Brassicaceae) fields at 300 site years and 15 ecoregions across the Canadian Prairie provinces in each spring of 2007–2011 and in North Dakota, United States of America in 2010–2011. Peak numbers and relative species abundance varied with year, site, and ecoregion. Phyllotreta striolata (Fabricius) was most common in northern ecoregions, whereas Phyllotreta cruciferae (Goeze) dominated nearer the 49th parallel. The proportion of P. striolata in northern areas increased dramatically compared with surveys in the 1970s. Phyllotreta striolata displaced Psylliodes punctulata Melsheimer as the most common flea beetle in the Peace River Lowlands, displaced P. cruciferae as the most common flea beetle in the Aspen Parkland of central Alberta, Canada, and increased in proportion in central Saskatchewan and much of Manitoba, Canada. Once rare in southern ecoregions, P. striolata was found there in increasing numbers. Temperature was the most consistent weather parameter to predict occurrence of both P. cruciferae and P. striolata. Although P. striolata became more numerous over years in four of seven principal ecoregions, P. cruciferae remained the predominant species on traps with the highest numbers of flea beetles.

Stem galls of Diplolepis spinosa (Ashmead), usually found on the endemic rose Rosa blanda Ait., and root galls of D. radicum (Osten Sacken), usually found on the endemic rose R. acicularis Lindl., have become established on the cultivated rose R. rugosa Thunb. in Canada. Adults and galls of D. spinosa and D. radicum are described and compared with those of closely related species. Host records, damage, and distribution of both species are discussed as is the suitability of R. rugosa as a host. It is suggested that galls in urban habitats are being established by adults flying into cities from surrounding patches of endemic roses.