The question of the effect of poisons on the blood of insects is a new one in entomo-toxicological literature. In a series of works by Metalnikov (1908, 1924, 1927) we have a study of the reaction of the blood of the larva of the Wax Moth (Galleria mellonella) in consequence of an injection into the body cavity of various substances and morbiferous microbes. The paper by Mrs. Tareeva and Nenyukov (1931) describes, very briefly and in general features, the picture of the blood of Calliptamus italicus in the case of poisoning by means of sodium arsenate or sodium fluoride.

Au mois de mars de l'année 1933 j'ai accepté l'invitation de Monsieur E. Guest, Officier inspecteur de l'Agriculture en Iraq et en même temps Botaniste, de visiter l'Iraq pour lui aider dans quelques travaux qu'il voulait poursuivre, et le 30 mars j'ai quitté Jérusalem, accompagné par Monsieur Guest et par Monsieur M. Zohary, mon assistantet collaborateur. Arrivant à Baghdad les premiers jours d'avril, j'ai été invité par Monsieur le Ministre des Economies et des Communications et par le Directeur Général de l'Agriculture de faire cette visite au compte du Gouvernement Iraquien et de m'intéresser pendant mon tour spécialement aux problèmes de la botanique appliquée et particulièrement au problème des sauterelles et du reboisement et de l'afforestation. J'ai accepté volontiers cette invitation. Il me fallait prolonger le séjour en Iraq de dix jours de plus qu'il a été projeté d'abord. Ces dix jours étaient presque entièrement consacrés à l'étude de la végétation des champs de ponte des sauterelles.

During my work on the life-history of the Chalcid, Euchalcidia caryobori, Hanna (Hanna 1933), which parasitises the pupae and the late larval stages of the Bruchid, Caryoborus pallidus, Oliv., infesting senna pods, great difficulty was experienced in obtaining the material. Infested senna pods arrive in London from the Sudan between June and August. Any pods arriving after or before that are not usually infested to any considerable extent. To guard against this lack of material, a large supply of parasitised and unparasitised pupae of the Bruchid was obtained when available by sifting the senna pods and keeping them in large glass jars at a constant temperature of 27°C. The Chalcid soon emerges and deposits its eggs through the cocoon on the unparasitised pupae of the Bruchid and feeds on peeled sultanas placed on a cardboard tray on top of the material and moistened every day. The sultanas were changed every three days to avoid fermentation.

Since the publication of my 1931 revision of the genus Diatraea, Guilding, in which 48 American species were treated, a considerable number of additional specimens of these moths has reached me from various sources. This material forms the foundation of the present paper, but I am also taking advantage of this opportunity to add certain references to the systematics which have come to my notice recently, as well as new locality and host records and descriptions of the early stages of some of the species ; the larval and pupal descriptions, however, are given primarily for the use of field workers, and should not be interpreted as technical diagnoses.

1. The survey of Diatraea spp. in their primitive habitats has been extended to cover the interior Guiana plateau, the Rio Branco, the lower Rio Negro and the lower Amazon.

2. The greatest practical result has been the discovery and introduction into British Guiana of the Amazon fly parasite (Metagonistylum minense) of D. saccharalis.

3. The most interesting ecological result was the finding of several Diatraea spp. as original members of a true savannah association.

4. The twelve species considered are grouped as forest, riparian, savannah and domestic species.

5. The two forest species are D. bellifactella and D. brunnescens.

6. Riparian grass associations are developed over huge areas on the lower Amazon, where they may be divided roughly into three main zones, dominated by Paspalum repens, Echinochloa polystachya and Paspalum fasciculatum, respectively.

7. The chief, and in fact only Diatraea of the first and second zones, is D. saccharalis, which is occasionally abundant.

8. The P. fasciculatum zone is colonised by D. amazonica and D. myersi.

9. The pure savannah species are D. canella, D. impersonatella, D. savannarum and D. cayennella.

10. D. lineolata is practically confined to maize, and no wild host-plants, either naturalised or indigenous, are known.

11. Five species attack cane, namely, saccharalis, busckella, impersonatella, canella and albicrinella, and all except the latter are major pests over considerable areas.

1. When studying the effect of intermittent starvation upon the length of development of the larval phase it is necessary to carry out experiments with each stage separately. Ignoring this factor and carrying out experiments on the larval phase as a whole results in serious errors.

2. The shorter the periods of feeding and consequently the longer starvation periods during each 24 hours the stronger their effect upon the length of development of each stage.

3. More than 50 per cent. of larvae fed only for 2 hours a day and starved for 22 hours accomplish their complete metamorphosis and produce moths that are fully capable of living.

4. The length of development of each stage depends upon the feeding regime during the previous stage. Using the same starving regime, development of the last stage is the longer the earlier the stage at which larvae were subjected to this regime.

5. At different stages of development larvae react differently to the same starvation regime. Thus starving for 12 hours a day increases the duration of the development of the 3rd stage by 104 per cent. ; that of the 4th stage does not increase at all, while the development of the 5th stage increases only by 31 per cent.

6. Nature of food greatly influences the length of development under conditions of intermittent starvation. Starving for 8 hours a day when feeding larvae on wormwood results in greater increase of development than starving for 12 hours a day when feeding on goose-foot.

7. All factors influencing the development of the larval phase result in decreasing the weight of the pupae. Decrease in weight of pupae is the greater the longer the starvation periods and the earlier larvae were subjected to starvation effect. Nature of food also highly affects the weight of pupae.

8. Intensity of feeding during feeding periods of starving larvae does not decrease as compared to control. With very strongly starving larvae intensiveness of feeding even increases.

9. There is no direct proportion between the quantity of excrement passed, that is amount of food consumed and the weight of pupae. The longer the development, the more there are feeding periods and consequently the more excrement passed. Owing to the lengthening of development the most part of substances consumed are spent on vegetative functions ; therefore there cannot exist direct connection between the number of excrement passed and the weight of pupae.

The air-pump which is described in the present paper was designed in order to replace the rubber double-bellows type of inflator supplied with apparatus for use in the preservation of larvae. In the tropics, the life of articles manufactured from rubber is a comparatively short one, since rubber perishes if frequently handled, or even if stored, in spite of being packed in French chalk. The only rubber article necessary for use with this pump is tubing, which is easily replaceable. In Malaya, it has been found that the double-bellows type of inflator is unsatisfactory, owing to its rapid deterioration.

During a recent study of some insect and other pests of the cardamom plant in two or three tracts in South India, a new species of thrips was noted doing some appreciable damage to cardamom capsules on an estate in the Anamalai Hills, and this is described below.

So far as the writers are aware, there is very little on record regarding insect pests of cardamom, especially of those affecting the growing crop, in India. This is chiefly due to the fact that this crop is grown only in some select forest areas, and we get very few opportunities of studying its diseases. The only insects so far recorded as casual pests of cardamom appear to be (1) the shoot-borer caterpillar (Dichocrocis punctiferalis, Guen.) recorded by Macmillan in 1925 ; this is a well-known pest of castor, turmeric and ginger in the plains. (2) A capsule-boring Scolytid beetle, a minute dark brown insect boring in the capsules like the rice weevil; it is not quite clear from the available information in the records from Coorg whether this was noted as a pest of the growing crop or only in the stored dry capsules. (3) The cardamom borer, Lampides elpis, Godt., the pinkish caterpillar of a small blue Lycaenid butterfly which has been noted to attack the flowers and pods to a certain extent but not seriously. (4) A swarming caterpillar (Eupterote sp.) which was once noted as causing substantial defoliation of the crop. (5) A white delicate lace-wing bug (Stephanitis typicus, Dist.), a minor pest also found on turmeric and ginger. A few others, like Ischnodemus vochus, Tol. (a bug) and Hilarographa caminodes, Meyr. (a root-boring caterpillar), have also been noted off and on ; but none of them has ever attained the status of a serious pest.

An illustrated description is given of the construction details of a stable trap in Jamaica to catch Anopheline mosquitos. This trap is of knock-down type, which is more portable than many traps used for the same purpose.

Mosquito “ catches ” from stable traps are a means of obtaining information for planning anti-Anopheline work in a new area. These “ catches ” can be carried out with regularity and can give data to indicate the need of strengthening control measures to deal with the seasonal emergence of different mosquitos in specified zones.

The area in which the Health Officer of Kingston requires information about the prevalence of Anophelines is so extensive that nearly fifty regular mosquito catching stations should be visited at least twice a month. In order to obtain the needed data with the present staff, the writer recommends the simultaneous use of six portable stable traps.

The selection of examples where the biological control method has been successful depends somewhat upon the individual viewpoint. A casual perusal of the literature would lead one to believe that predators and parasites had been unusually successful against many pests. In a recent communication from H. S. Smith it was stated : “ If you go over the old literature on this subject in California, you will find that the black scale problem was solved by the introduction of Rhizobius in 1890. It was solved again in 1900 by the introduction of Scutellista. But we still spend in excess of a million dollars a year in southern California on spraying and fumigation for this pest. The same was true in Hawaii. For many years it was stated that one of the greatest examples of successful biological control was that of the sugar-cane leafhopper by the egg parasites, Paranagrus and Ootetrastichus. Later Cyrtorhinus was introduced with success, and it was admitted that control by the two egg parasites was not satisfactory. No doubt all these introductions were valuable and represent different degrees of control, each succeeding introduction resulting in a greater degree of control than previously existed. The difficulty lies in the absence of a satisfactory criterion by which to measure and record the relative effects of the introductions.” A critical analysis of the data submitted to support the contentions for the early examples mentioned above is far from convincing. However, it should be recalled that the standards for measuring the success of biological control have undergone considerable change during the intervening period.

The following addition to the Coccidae consists of eleven new species which are assigned to the Pseudococcine genera Rhizoecus and Ripersia. A number of indigenous species of root-infesting mealybugs have been implicated with fungoid associates in the causation of certain root diseases of important economic plants in East Africa and the systematic description of hypogeic Coccidae in that area cannot fail to have economic significance.

For the biological study of Tachardia lacca, Kerr, it is of importance to have, so far as possible, a complete knowledge of all the insects that live in relation with it—predators and parasites of the Coccid, parasites of the predators and hyperparasites. This biological complex begins to be better known, owing to the studies of several entomologists in India, especially at the Indian Lac Research Institute at Namkum.

Cocoons of Diprion sertifer, Geoffr., containing nearly eight millions Microplectron fuscipennis, Zett., were collected in Europe in 1934 and despatched to Canada for the control of the Spruce Sawfly, Diprion polytomum, Htg.

This parasite is widely distributed throughout Europe as a primary parasite of several species of pine sawflies of the genus Diprion.

A full account of the biology and a detailed description of the various stages is given.

In the laboratory it was reared in large numbers on the cocoons of D. polytomum from Canada.

Its chances of success in Canada depend on its acclimatisation and the accessibility and quantity of host material. Its tremendous fecundity and rapid rate of increase are greatly in its favour.