Mr. C. A. Frost, the coleopterist, to whom of recent years I have been indebted for many interesting and, indeed, rare Heteroptera, has again favored me with some unusual species taken by him this summer (1929), in Nova Scotia. Portaupique, so I learn from Mr. Frost, is on the North shore of Minas Basin, 30 miles west of Truro; Westchester is up in the hills at a lake in the spruce woods.

Several entomologists have discussed with me the question of the distinguishing characters of Ranatra quadridentata, Stal, and Ranatra fusca, Pal. Beauv., and in consequence I venture to set forth here briefly and plainly the differences between these two and Ranatra kirkaldyi, n. sp, which I took for the first time in New York State.

When I saw Professor Vernon L. Kellogg's new “American Insects” advertised, I determined to posses a copy, which I thought would very naturally give a little more space than “Comstock's Manual” to the Heteroptera, and being a much more recent publication, would be free, with regard to the Waterbugs, from the mistatements and errors of fact of its predecessors and therefore serviceable as a book of reference. Very fortunately (from my point of view), a friendly bookseller allowed me to examine the volume and in consequence I was able to spare myself a useless expense.

I suppose that in due course I shall acquire much los and honour and not a little fame for harping in season and out of season to the tune of “Waterbugs.” But I shall feel that my labours have not been in vain if by so doing I can induce others to lauch themselves on the study of theese forms, which are in many respects the most interesting and easily observed and collected of the Heteroptera. In these families much remains to be done.

Of the water-bugs, perhaps Ranatra and Nepa are better known than the others in their anatomy and earlier stages. Dufour's classic on the anatomy of Nepa cinerea, L., and Ranatra linearis, L., has been followed by the work of other investigators in these two species, and the peculiar filamentous ova of the two genera have long been favourites with students. But neverthless, thus far no compelte life-history has been worked out for either of them.

The common callipers ordinarily sold for measuring insects have always seemed to me too coarse for fine work. In the Hemiptera especially, where there is an abundace of small forms, they would certainly be useless for the delicate measurments of antennæ and limbs so frequently necessary, and for the proportional dimensions called for in the determination of species.

With his usual kindness Mr. C. A. Frost sent me the subjoined Heteroptera collected by him in Nova Scotia in July 1927 and 1929, at Portaupique and Westchester. The latest data available on bugs from this part are contained in Blatchley's Heteroptera of Eastern North America; the most extensive list thus far pubished is Parshley's 1923 paper, Records of Nova Scotian Heteroptera, which appeared in Proceedings of the Acadian Entomological Society for 1922, pp. 102, 108. The present records have been checked against these; the order of the species, for convenience, is that of Blatchley's Heteroptera.

The peculiar facility of the older entomologists, the fathers of the Sciences, for discarding each other's generic and specific names has in this instance, as in many others, given rise to be complicated synonymy, of which I give above that covering this extremely interesting little waterstrider. It is given more in detail in The Entomologist (London Eng.) for June, 1900, on Page 176, in which Kirkaldy elucidates it, relegating Say's specific name to synonymy, as it unfortunatley has been preoccuupied by Eschscholtz, who in 1822 described Hydrometra lineata from Manila, Philippine Islands. In the paper mentioned hereafter, Mr. J.O. Martin discusses the generic synonymy.

At every turn, since beginning my studies in the aquatic Hemiptera some four years ago, my attempts to verify some observation have been balked by the extreme meagreness of the information on the subject running all through the field of entomological literature. This lack is far more noticeable with reard to the immature stages of the Cryptocerata and of the aquatic and semi-aquatic forms of the Gymnocerata.