For the past few years I have been working spasmodically on the species of this difficult group with a view to clearing up he existing confusion in nomenclature. To Smith must be given the credit for recognizing the fact that a greater number of species existed in the group than had been suspected by the older authors.

Capulinia crateraformis, n. sp.

The ♀ makes a small crater-shaped gall in the bark of the limbs and twigs. This gall is about 1.5 mm. high, and consists of an outer circular ring from 1 mm. to 1.5 mm. in diameter, and a small cone within, which can readily be removed. The cavity inhabited by the insect is smooth and is lined with a white powder. The adult ♀ is small, oval in outline, pink, and is dusted with a white powdery secretion. Boiled in a solution of KOH it becomes colourless. Size, after boiling: length, .96 mm.; width, .73 mm.

Efferia okanagana sp. nov. is described from specimens collected in the grasslands of the southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, mainly the Okanagan Valley. The male and female genitalia are described and illustrated. The existing key to species of Efferia Coquillett is modified to enable identification of male and female E. okanagana. The species belongs to the E. arida species group and perhaps is most closely related to E. arida (Williston) and E. pinali Wilcox. Efferia coulei Wilcox is the closest sympatric relative. Sequences of the cytochrome oxidase I gene (DNA barcode) for E. okanagana and E. coulei show distinct clusters for each species that are approximately 7.0% divergent (uncorrected p distance). Efferia okanagana has an early flight period (May and June) and lives in low-elevation grasslands dominated by bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata (Pursh) Á. Löve) (Poaceae), especially where the soil is gravelly. It is considered a potential species at risk by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

I employ this subfamily name as used hy Hampson although I believe that in all probability it must be restricted to the genus Acronicta Ochs. and its few close allies, and the term Ampphipyrinae, as used by Seitz in his Macrolepidoptera of the World, employed in its place.

Gall wasps in the cynipid genus Diplolepis Geoffroy (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) attack various species of native and introduced roses in Canada. Although gall forms are diverse, gall wasps are parasitised by highly concordant complexes of parasitoids and inquilines. Many species of gall wasps attack the same host plants and develop over the same periods in the season, suggesting that opportunistic parasitoids may be exploiting a range of hosts rather than specialising. We sampled larvae of Eurytoma Illiger (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) from galls of D. variabilis (Bassett) and D. rosaefolii (Cockerell), gall inducers that develop fairly synchronously late in the growing season on leaves of Rosa woodsii Lindl. (Rosaceae) in the Okanagan Valley of central British Columbia, Canada. Galls were sampled at five different sites along a gradient from the north end of the valley to the Canada–United States border, a distance of 100 km. We extracted DNA, then amplified and sequenced the cytochrome b segment for each Eurytoma larva. We identified two well-supported clades that were differentiated by neither sampling location nor host. Instead, at least two species of Eurytoma, E. imminuta Bugbee and E. longavena Bugbee, exist at these localities, and both exploit at least two of the Diplolepis hosts found at these sites.

For 40 years, the Biological Survey of Canada (BSC) has encouraged and organised studies of the arthropod fauna of Canada, through the wide involvement of the scientific community and the leadership of an expert steering committee. The benefits of the BSC to science include the completion of major cooperative projects to acquire and synthesise knowledge (documenting faunas in the Yukon, Canadian grasslands, and other significant regions and habitats), the assembly and organisation of information and specimens, and improved communication among entomologists. Its efforts have led to valuable monographs, scientific briefs, newsletters, and other products summarised here, including documents that are also useful to those outside entomology. Key operating principles of the BSC are identified. In particular, decisions come from broadly based scientific considerations, an approach to understanding the fauna that guarantees the scientific relevance of the work and is not offset by political or other influences. Core work is planned over the long term to ensure collaboration, focus, efficiency, integrity, quality, productivity, and delivery. The achievements of the BSC over many years confirm the effectiveness of this model for scientific cooperation.

Length not quite 5 mm. Cephalothorax above brilliant peacock green, slightly intermixed with brassy in front; white hairs above the row of eyes forming a weak band, also narrowly encircling the eyes; an irregular patch of white hairs beneath the hindmost eyes; lateral (inferior) margins of cephalothorax with a broad, well-defined white band. Legs black with white hairs, the hairs so arranged as to divide the legs into alternate sections of black and white; the tibiæ black at base and middle, the tarsi narrowly black at base. Palpi covered with white hairs. Mandibles black. Abdomen above brilliant metallic magenta, with the base yellowish green; the sides and the under surface white, minutely speckled with black.

In the course of my search for Miridae in Newfoundland in 1980, I collected a series of six bugs which proved to be the males of Myrmedobia exilis (Fallén), family Microphysidae. The specimens were collected by sweeping the ground cover on the east side of Gibbet Hill just west of the Information Centre (Signal Hill National Historic Park), St. John's, Newfoundland, 20 July 1980. The vegetation on the hill site consisted mainly of a dense, but short mat of heather (Calluna vulgaris (L.) Hull) intermixed with moss, clumps of grasses, and a few herbaceous plants. Thus sweeping was right along the ground. Collecting at the Signal Hill site, and generally across Newfoundland was limited by wet weather and although I spent three nights at St. John's only minimal collecting was possible.

Frequently descriptive entomology suffers from a lack of precise data on specimen colour. Since colour is rarely defined and since an effective technique is available, the authors suggest that greater consideration be given colour analysis. A simple procedure is outlined in relation to colour analysis of specimens undergoing degreasing.

The generic characters of Eumacronychia are reviewed and as here considered the genus includes 21 nominal forms of which 9 are described as new. All members are quite similar in habitus and difficult to distinguish except by reference to the male terminalia. A key to all known species is included to facilitate identification. The maximum distribution of the genus is centered in the southwestern United States with the present known extreme range extending from Canada to Guatamala.

The following description is presented for a new species of Campoplegidea of the sub-genus Vicreckiana, bred from larvae of the heinlock looper (Ellopia fiscellaria Gn.) by Mr. Karl Schedl, during the summer of 1928.

A gynandromorph of Rachispoda subpiligera (Malloch) is described. The specimen exhibits both bilateral and anterior/posterior division of male and female genitalic components. Abdominal segment 5 is male, segments 6 and 7 are bilaterally divided into male (right) and female (left) halves, and segments 8–11 are female. Comparison of male and female components supports the view that the large, asymmetrical sclerite posterior to sternite 5 in male Sphaeroceridae is synsternite 6 + 7. Circumversion of the genitalia, normally seen in male segments 8–11, is absent, although male components of segments 6 and 7 exhibit asymmetry normally associated with circumversion. This suggests that asymmetry of sternites 6 and 7 is a developmental process independent of circumversion, not a direct consequence of circumversion.

In recent ecological studies on the European pine shoot moth, (Rhyacionia buoliana (Schiff.)), where a major objective was to evaluate the influence of different hosts on oviposition preference, larval mortality, insect size, rate of development, and sex ratio, the inadequacy of conventional growth measurements was much too apparent. There was a need to document relatively small differences in larval size and rate of growth on several hosts or from one stand to another. Measurements which showed growth but not weight or volume losses have limited value where the insect under study has a long non-feeding period. Such measurements as body length, and especially head capsule width, obviously belonged in this category. On the other hand, it was felt that dry weight measurements would show both gain and loss. Further, a volume estimate (or body index) would be even more useful, if one could be devised which bore a linear relationship to dry weight. Such an index, while it might involve more than one measurement, nevertheless could be made without destroying the larvae.

Mating behavior among many moth species is mediated by female-released pheromones that attract males over distance. Males of the western spruce budworm, Choristoneura occidentalis Freeman, are attracted by pheromone which has been identified and synthesized (Cory et al. 1982; Silk et al. 1982). In response to pheromone, males will fly upwind and thus approach a bait on a fir limb, then land and persistently search near the bait, often locating it (Sower and Shorb 1985). Male budworm moths moving upwind toward a pheromone source are seen to use a wandering, left-and-right and up-and-down flight pattern. This is the classic anemotactic response of male moths to female-released pheromone as described by Shorey (1976), David et al. (1983), and references therein.

Two new species of Lygaeinae are described from Canada. Lygaeospilus brevipilus from British Columbia and Melanopleurus perplexus from Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. L. brevipilus is also recorded from Oregon. The record of M. perplexus in Canada represents an extension of the previously recorded range for the genus Melanopleurus. Revised keys to the species of Lygaeospilus and Melanopleurus are given.

The following new genera and species of Proctotrypidæ were all collected in Canada by Mr. W. Hague Harrington, of Ottawa.

Scorrioteleia, gen. nov.

Abdomen with five visible segments; the last three segments long, slender, cylindrical, together as long as the second, and resembling the tenninal segments of a scorpion; the third segment is about as long as the fourth and fifth segments united, the fifth pointed. Front wings with the marginal vein shorter than the marginal cell, and scarcely twice as long as the first abscissa of radius, which is slightly oblique. Antennfæ 15-jointed, filiform, the first joint of flagellum the longest, about half the length of the scape, the following joints to the last very gradually shortening, the penultimate joint being about twice as long as thick, the last joint oblong-oval, one-half longer than the preceding.

The Effect of DDT on the Mid-Gut of the Bee

The mid-gut from twelve bees poisoned with the pure para isomer of DDT was studied. Of these, five contained the large bubble of gas described on page 48: their histological appearance was almost identical but it differed in some ways from those which contained no bubble.

A collection of pinned, inflated larvae systematically arranged in Schmitt boxes provides an invaluable reference for taxonomists. Inflated or blown larvae are more readily available for examination and usually retain their colours better than do “liquid-preserved” larvae. Inflation has disadvantages in that the specimens are more easily damaged and require more time in preparation. However the importance of these two factors has been reduced by techniques employed at the Vernon Laboratory.