In 1837 a commission established by the State of Massachusetts to conduct a botanical and zoological survey was instructed by Governor Everett in the following terms:—

“ It is presumed to have been a leading object of the Legislature, in authorizing this survey, to promote the agricultural benefit of the Commonwealth, and you will keep carefully in view the economical relations of every subject of your inquiry. By this, however, it is not intended that scientific order, method or comprehension should be departed from. At the same time that which is practically useful will receive a proportionately greater share of attention than that which is merely curious; the promotion of comfort and happiness being the great human end of all science.”

On the 19th June 1916, I visited for a few hours Marienburg Estate, Surinam, as froghoppers had been previously reported as occurring in sufficient numbers to cause injury.

The wet season was just commencing, the first heavy rains of the season having fallen the previous day and it rained heavily during part of my visit.

The froghopper (Tomaspis tristis, F.) was found commonly on two parts of the Estate which Mr. Sheddon, the Manager, pointed out as being most heavily infested last year. It was not in sufficient numbers to be doing any damage at present, but as the wet season is only beginning it will probably increase rapidly during the next few months.

Samples of water containing mosquito larvae are collected at Accra by the Sanitary Inspectors, and are sent regularly to the Laboratory for identification. The number of samples submitted in this way is never very large, and varies considerably from time to time; but, recently, a careful examination has been made of all the specimens received during a complete year, and it is proposed to analyse in this paper the materials thus collected. In 1910–1911 Graham made a similar study of the larvae found in native water-receptacles at Lagos, and it will therefore be interesting to compare our results with those obtained by him.

Accra, the capital of the Gold Coast Colony, is situated on the coast a few miles west of the meridian of Greenwich and about 330 miles north of the Equator. The town itself is divided into three portions, Accra proper to the west, Christiansborg where the Governor resides to the east, and the official residential area Victoriaborg between these two. The surrounding country is level for some miles, but the actual site of the town slopes slightly upwards as it recedes from the sea. Accra is a very dry and dusty town, almost completely denuded of vegetation. The rainfall is low ; during the twelve months under consideration, December 1914 to November 1915, 21·75 inches of rain fell. During the same period the maximum shade temperature averaged 85·39°, the minimum 73·83°, and the relative humidity 72·46°. The physical features and climatic conditions of Accra differ therefore greatly from those of Lagos, a low-lying town surrounded by swamps with an average rainfall of about 70 inches.

The following report deals with the investigation into the bionomics of Glossina morsitans being carried out in Northern Rhodesia on behalf of the British South Africa Company.

On my return from leave in July 1914 it was decided to form a base camp close to the railway line. Several areas in the neighbourhood of Broken Hill where fly was reported as being very thick were first examined, but were found from various causes to be unsuitable. A site was finally selected at the source of the Lukanga River, about four miles from the line and near Kashitu station, midway between Broken Hill and Ndola. Building was commenced in August and completed in October, just before the commencement of the rains.

Messrs. Eminson and Dollman, who had been working on the Kafue River at Mwengwa, had just reported the discovery of Mutilla glossinae, Turner, a wasp parasitic on the pupae of G. morsitans and of considerable importance, since the former worker found that about 10 per cent, of the 350 pupae he had collected were destroyed by this insect. This is the first insect parasite of any tsetse to be found in numbers, and it was decided to let the future investigations centralise round it. In order to discover whether it was localised or generally distributed, a tour was made through the fly areas of N.E. Rhodesia during the dry season of last year (1915) for the collection of pupae in various localities. About 4,000 were collected and examined. May and July were spent at Chutika (Hargreaves) in the Luangwa Valley, part of August at Nawalia in the Mpika section of the same valley, and September at Ngoa on the plateau near Mpika. Breeding was found to have commenced in the Luangwa Valley about the middle of April, and by the time the plateau was reached it was at its height. Before dealing with the parasites found, some general questions will be discussed.

It is a well-known fact that the eggs of Stegomyia fasciata are highly resistant to conditions adverse to their normal development.

In April 1915 I received through the Colonial Office a few dried leaves from West Africa, on which—secured by a fine mud deposit—were eggs of this mosquito that had been in a dried condition for at least three and a half months. These were found to be viable and were successfully hatched and reared for many successive generations, as described in a recent paper.

Anopheles albotaeniatus was described by Theobald from specimens taken in Perak, Federated Malay States (Mon. Cul. iii, p. 88, 1903). It has also been recorded from the Malay Peninsula by Leicester (Stud. Iust. Med. Res., iii, pt. 3, p. 34, 1908) and Strickland (Bull. Ent. Res. iv, p. 140, 1914), from British North Borneo by Roper (Bull. Ent. Res. v, p. 147, 1915) and from Sumatra by Schüffner and Swellengrebel (Geneesk. Tijd. Ned. Ind. liv, p. 160, 1914) and Stanton (Ind. Jour. Med. Res. iii, p. 252, 1915). It is an uncommon species in the Malayan region and has not so far been met with outside it.

British Guiana lies between the latitudes 0·41′ N. (source of the Essequebo River) and 8° 33′ 22″ N. (Punta Playa), has a depth from north to south of about 500 miles, a seaboard of about 270 miles trending in a south-easterly direction, and occupies in the north-east of South America an area approximately equal in extent to Great Britain. It is bounded on the north by the Atlantic Ocean, on the east by Surinam or Dutch Guiana, on the south and south-west by Brazil, and on the west by Venezuela.

The Colony may be divided broadly into three belts. The northern one consists of a low-lying flat and swampy belt of marine alluvium—the coastal region. This rises gradually from the seaboard and extends inland for a distance varying from 5 to 49 miles. It is succeeded by a broader and slightly elevated tract of country of sandy and clayey soils. This belt is generally undulating, and is traversed in places by sand-dunes rising from 50 to 180 ft. above sea-level. The more elevated portion of the Colony lies to the southward of the above-mentioned regions. It rises gradually to the south-west, between the river valleys, which are in many parts swampy, and contains three principal mountain ranges, several irregularly distributed smaller ranges, and in the southern and eastern parts numerous isolated hills and mountains. The eastern portion is almost entirely forest-clad, but on the south-western side there is an extensive area of flat grass-clad savannah land elevated about 300 feet above sea-level.

Zanzibar Town is roughly divided into two halves, the European quarter, with the Indian Bazaar, and the native African town, these two districts being separated by a tidal creek. The European quarter (where most of the Government officials and Europeans reside) is on the western side in close proximity to the sea. The periphery of the town is surrounded on the land side by various swamps, all of them potential mosquito-breeding areas during certain seasons of the year, some of them permanent throughout the year.

In a previous paper (Ann. Applied Biol. i, 1914, pp. 41–76) in which the author dealt with the life-history of Pegomyia hyoscyami, Panz., it was shown that the foodplants of this species belonged principally to the natural orders Chenopodiaceae and Solanaceae. Various weeds have also been cited in this connection, namely, certain kinds of thistle and the dandelion. Recently E. M. Vassiliev (see Rev. Appl. Ent. iii, Ser. A., 1915, p. 608) has added to the record the following:—Silene (catchfly), Datura stramonium (thorn-apple) and Onopordon acanthium (Scotch thistle). Thus, in addition to the two aforementioned, the orders Caryophyllaceae and Compositae are fairly well represented. As the original paper of the Russian author is not available, it cannot be definitely stated in how far his records are authentic. But as he advises the removal of these weeds from the vicinity of beet plantations, one would naturally infer that he has some reason for assuming that they may be attacked by the mangold fly and presumably provide an ever-present source of infestation to the cultivated crop.

Of all the measures designed to effect a reduction in the number of mosquitos “ oiling,” or the application of kerosene in one form or another to collections of water in the neighbourhood, is I suppose the favourite. The popularity of this measure is no doubt an indication of its general efficiency, and as it is a remedy that can and should be employed by the individual as well as by the Sanitary Authorities, it has become familiar to every dweller in the tropics. This familiarity has, I believe, led to an exaggerated confidence in its efficacy.

Phlebotomus major, var. chinensis, var. n.

This variety differs from the description of P. major given by Annańdale by the relatively greater length of the proximal segment of the superior claspers, and, also in the male, in having the second, third, and fourth segments of the palpi of equal length. There are also slight colour differences in both sexes, but little importance can be attached to such a variable character.

The larva of Stegomyia fasciata passes through four distinct phases after it emerges from the egg and before it pupates. Under circumstances favourable to growth these phases are passed through very rapidly and the whole larval stage may occupy less than a week. In one experiment ten larvae which had hatched from their eggs on 1st April between 12 noon and 2 p.m. were isolated singly in small glass tubes containing a three-days-old broth medium. All these larvae cast their first pelts on the second day (2nd April), their second pelts on the third day, and their third pelts on the fourth day. The fourth and last larval pelt was not cast simultaneously by all the larvae, perhaps because by this time the nutrient value of the medium in the different tubes had begun to vary to an appreciable degree. Two larvae cast the fourth pelt on the seventh day, one on the eighth day, three on the ninth, one on the tenth, and one on the thirteenth day, and two died in this phase. One pupa died, but all the others hatched on the second day after pupation. In this experiment therefore the larval stage lasted on the average nine days, the shortest time being under seven days, and the longest thirteen days.

Mutilla glossinae, Turn.

Mutilla glossinae, Turner, Bull. Entom. Res., v., 1915, p. 383, ♀.

♂. Niger, albo-pilosus ; pronoto, mesonoto, scutelloque rufo-ferrugineis ; calcaribus albidis ; segmentis dorsalibus 2–4 apice anguste albo-fimbriatis ; alis basi hyalinis, dimidio apicali modice infuscatis ; mandibulis apice tridentatis. Long. 6 mm.

♂. Head narrower than the thorax, broader than long, rounded at the posterior angles, closely and not very finely punctured, the antennal tubercles well developed. Clypeus concave, smooth and shining. Third joint of the flagellum equal to the fourth, half as long again as the second and more than twice as long as the first. Eyes ovate, converging towards the clypeus, not emarginate ; ocelli placed in a triangle, the posterior pair a little further from each other than from the anterior ocellus and situated on the inner edge of a large but shallow depression. Thorax broad and short, closely but not coarsely punctured ; anterior margin of the pronotum straight, the posterior margin broadly arcuate ; scutellum flat, broadly truncate at the apex ; pleurae very closely punctured and sparsely clothed with long white pubescence. Median segment very coarsely reticulate, shorter than the scutellum, posterior slope very steep, not distinctly separated from the dorsal surface. Abdomen subsessile ; closely punctured, with distinct but narrow apical bands of long white hairs on segments 2–4, a less clearly defined band on the first ; apical dorsal segment broadly rounded, more coarsely punctured, the punctures more or less confluent longitudinally. Second ventral segment closely punctured and sparsely clothed with long whitish hairs, which form a continuous band on the apical margin. First dorsal segment short and broad, slightly depressed on the apical margin ; second very broad, fully twice as broad as long, the sides convex. Fore-wing with three cubital cells, radial cell very broad, not more than twice as long as broad ; first abscissa of the radius equal to the third, shorter than the second, the two recurrent nervures received near the middle of the second and third cubital cells.

The new species, described below, have been received from Mr. R. Dupont, Superintendent of Botanic Stations in the Seychelles.

Aspidiotus (Chrysomphalus) ansei, sp. nov. (fig. 1).

Female puparium irregularly circular or broadly ovate ; flattish or moderately convex. Very pale brownish ochreous, semitransparent ; pellicles darker, central. Diameter averaging 1·45 mm.

Male puparium smaller and more distinctly ovate ; pellicle nearer one extremity. Length 1 mm.

Adult female broadly rounded in front, narrowed and bluntly pointed behind. Margins of abdominal segments moderately produced. Pygidium (fig. 1) with six well developed prominent rounded lobes, the median pair indented on each side, the two lateral lobes more conspicuously indented on the outer side. Squames. long and deeply fimbriate : two in each of the median and first lateral spaces, three in the second lateral space, and three beyond the outer lateral lobe, followed immediately by a stout marginal prominence, beyond which the margin is slightly cristate for a short distance. Spines few, small and inconspicuous. Paraphyses, four on each side, elongate, conspicuous. Anal orifice near the extremity. Circumgenital glands in four groups: upper laterals with 3 to 4 pores, lower laterals with 2 to 3. Oval dorsal pores in two series on each side. Numerous long slender ducts communicating with the dorsal and marginal pores. Length, 1 mm.

Mr. A. H. Ritchie, Government Entomologist of Jamaica, has recently sent home specimens of a large black weevil which he has found doing serious damage to pine-apples in that island. The insect proves to be a new species of Metamasius, of the sub-family Calandrinae, and I have much pleasure in naming it after its discoverer.