Lac is the resinous encrustation secreted by the scale-insect, Laccifer (Tachardia) lacca, Kerr (Coccidae). Research with a view to the improvement in quality and quantity of this secretion consists therefore in a study of the Coccid itself and the hosts on which it lives, and the relationship between the insect and its hosts. It also entails an investigation of the insect friends and enemies of the Coccid and of its hosts.

1. The ornamentation of the wings in Anopheles funestus, Giles, is variable.

2. Nine distinct arrangements of the wing scales were observed in a random sample of 1,084 individuals.

3. Nearly nine-tenths of the specimens occurred in one group, in which there were dark and pale forms.

4. Variations in wing markings are not solely related to sex or to habitat.

5. The pale form was more prevalent in the wet season and the dark form in the dry season.

6. It is suggested that further study may reveal whether the dark form is the hibernating variety and whether one form is more important as a carrier of malaria than the other, and that these details of wing ornamentation should be recorded in future.

While investigating the Anophelini of Southern Rhodesia in connection with the research on blackwater fever conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, an undescribed variety of Anopheles funestus, Giles, was taken in the dry season. Nine males and eight females were collected from May to August 1927, near Shamva, and one male and one female in July 1928, in the Fungwi Native Reserve. All were caught out-of-doors except two females, one of which was taken in a shed constructed of grass and the other in a native hut. The remainder were taken in close association with the earth; in surface drains, caves and crevices in rocks. No specimens were taken in or near European habitations, but all in undeveloped country. No adults were bred out, so that the following description is based on individuals captured “wild.” The larva is unknown.

The Longicorn beetles comprise numerous species that are highly injurious both to growing trees and to timber, and some excellent papers have been published dealing either with important species and the methods of preventing their damage (Brooks, 1920) or giving a survey of a particular fauna (Craighead, 1923). Nevertheless, there are some rather important features of the life-history of these beetles that seem to have attracted onlyscant attention, and which have hitherto not been subjected to a systematic analysis. The purpose of this paper is to call attention to these neglected features and to give a short survey of the meagre and scattered information that we have about them, in order tostimulate further study, which seems warranted from both a theoretical and a practical point of view.

Owing to the wide divergences of opinion at present current among those in the Sudan who are interested in leaf-crinkle of cotton, it is thought that the present paper, incomplete as it is, may be of some value in indicating what little knowledge has so far been obtained by observations and direct controlled experiments, and in outlining the more obvious and important directions in which further investigations should proceed.

I am indebted to the Imperial Bureau of Entomology and to Mr. F. Laing, of the British Museum, for submitting to me for classification two small lots of Thysanoptera collected by Messrs. G. Samuel and J. G. Bald, of the Waite Agricultural Research Institute, Glen Osmond, South Australia.

For the mounting of mosquito larvae a fluid medium which combines the qualities of fixing, clearing, and preserving offers many advantages over those of a semi-solid consistency. The objection to using a fluid mountant is the difficulty of rendering the preparation permanent. To overcome this difficulty a search was made for a simple and effective method.

Colour:—Head bright yellow shading to orange at apex of clypeus and on labium; eyes grey-black; a broad shining brownish-black percurrent stripe down middle of vertex, extending slightly round anterior margin of head to frons, and much broader anteriorly than posteriorly. Pronotum shining black with a trace of whitish pruinosity giving a bluish sheen; a narrow transverse yellow band along anterior margin behind each eye, extending outwardly to and along lateral margins, a pair of narrow arcuate whitish spots on anterior disc between eyes and almost meeting in middle line, an impressed whitish spot on each side beyond outer end of arcuate spot and fusing externally with the yellow lateral border, and a large obscure yellowish rounded spot in each of the basal lateral angles. Propleura yellow. Scutellum shining black, covered with whitish pruinosity over impressed region of disc, giving a bluish sheen. Meso- and meta-pleura yellow shading to dark brown towards acetabula, the meso- and meta-sterna dark brown. Tegmina semi-hyaline, sometimes powdered with white pruinosity, which gives them a bluish sheen; the suprabrachial area and the first, third and fourth apical areas slightly infumate, the remainder infuscate; the costal plaque dark brown, veins brown. Wings hyaline, somewhat infumate, the veins (except cross-vein between second and third longitudinal veins) brown. Legs pale yellow, the anterior tibiae and tarsi and the intermediate tarsi infuscate. Abdomen entirely black, with very fine white pruinosity giving a bluish sheen.

The importance that has attached to the genus Phlebotomus in connection with its rôle as a possible vector of infections with various members of the family Trypanosomidae has led in recent years to an intensive study of this genus. This study has been pursued chiefly in two directions, viz., the differentiation of species and the possible rôle played by some of these in the transmission of trypanosome infections.

In the course of some six years' work, the apparatus here described has been progressively evolved from my original apparatus, which has already been dealt with in this journal (xv, p. 49).

The genus Niponius has hitherto been studied only from the standpoint of the adult characters, the larva having been unknown. These characters were considered by Fowler (Fauna of British India, Coleoptera, General Introduction 1912, p. 93) probably to be worthy of family rank; to quote Fowler “The very curious genus Niponius is closely related to the Histeridae, to which family it was assigned by its discoverer, Mr. G. Lewis, but it also bears affinities to other families, and is in several ways abnormal; we have therefore regarded it, with some hesitation, as provisionally separate.” The structure of the male genital tube was studied by Sharp & Muir (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1912, p. 512) and they remark (l.c. p. 513) “The four families Histeridae, Synteliidae, Sphaeritidae and Niponiidae are so closely related by the aedeagus, that they might form one family, in which the Histeridae would include the higher developments.”

1. Algae are ingested by many species of mosquito larvae and appear to form an important part of the food of these larvae.

2. The algae are digested in the gut, but the digestion is often by no means complete.

3. It is quite possible that the rôle played by the algae may also be assumed by other forms of organic matter, for larvae may be reared to maturity in solutions containing little or no algae.

4. Different algae react differently in the guts of the larvae, some being noticeably digested and some hardly at all.

5. Those algae which are digested the most are easily stained and are forms of low osmotic pressure.

6. Cytological investigation revealed no character that indicates that algae are an especially nutritious diet.

This work was carried out at the Farnham House Laboratory of the Imperial Institute of Entomology, Buckinghamshire, under the guidance of Dr. P. A. Buxton, to whom my thanks are due.

The material upon which the following descriptions are based, was received through the Imperial Bureau of Entomology, and I am indebted to the Director of that institution for the privilege of studying it.

Argas brumpti was first described by Neumann, in 1907 from specimens taken by Brumpt in Somaliland (Ogaden), and has since been found to occur also in British East Africa (Kitui) and the Sudan (Erkowit, Gebelein and Nuba Mountains). In the nymphal and adult stages it has a wide range of hosts, including man, but in the larval stage is far less catholic in its tastes. Cunliffe, in 1913, failed to induce the larvae to feed on a domestic fowl; King, in 1915, having similarly failed to rear them on domestic fowls, sparrows, pigeons, doves and bats, found that they would attach themselves readily to the loose skin on the head and neck of the guinea-fowl, Numida meleagris, and engorge. Larvae so fed were reared to maturity. It was believed that the guinea-fowl was possibly the usual host of A. brumpti in the larval stage, but the examination of numbers of guinea-fowl shot in districts in which this tick occurs yielded no confirmatory evidence.

An effort to ascertain the specific status of described Australian Calliphorine flies was started in 1922, when some conceptions of synonymy gathered from various sources were published by Johnston & Hardy. In 1925, Patton gave his opinions concerning the identity of the species after examining many types in Europe. In 1926, I drew attention to discrepancies that were at that time apparent in Patton's views, and gave further information that had accrued during the three previous years. In 1927, Bezzi revised the genus over a wide area, and his paper covering the Indo-Australian species is the outstanding contribution in so far as many genera previously proposed are reviewed. There followed in the same year a paper by Malloch on specific characters, which paper is highly suggestive and constructive, but unfortunately some of the species of earlier authors are incorrectly determined; and, indeed, this defect is noticeable throughout the series of papers referred to above, many names being perhaps wrongly placed as synonyms or species needlessly redescribed as new.

During the early part of 1929, a specially severe infestation of locusts occurred in the northern provinces of Tanganyika Territory, an extension of the plague already felt in Kenya. Laying was known to have taken place more or less continuously over the drier country all the way from Longido, west of Kilimanjaro, to the West Usambara Mountains. Successive broods of young locusts had to be dealt with; and in the same area it was possible to see newly hatched hoppers and insects almost full-grown and able to fly. An ample supply of extra food was therefore provided for any birds that might care to avail themselves of it, except the smallest, and certain specialists such as the Hirundines. I was anxious to get some idea of how the birds would react to these abnormal food-conditions, and by the kindness of Dr. and Mrs. R. R. Le G. Worsley, the former of whom was in charge of a sector of the locust campaign, I was able during the first week of June 1929 to make observations in a very heavily infested area between the Middle Pangani River and the South Pare Mountains. I have also to thank the Director E.A.A.R.S. for certain facilities in this connection.

♀♂. Cadmium-yellow; vertex and occiput medianly, mesonotum posteriorly in the angle formed by the notauli, black (fig. 1); scape above and flagellum very dark brown to black; hind tarsi very dark brown to black with flavescent pilosity; the apical tergites above commonly with a small dark mark; ovipositor red, the sheaths brown with flavescent pilosity; wings slightly and evenly infumated, except at apex, where they are decidedly darker, that is to say, in the forewing the apical half of the 3rd cubital and 2nd discoidal cells, and the apical fourth of the 2nd brachial cell, and in the hind wing the apical third of the radial, about the apical third of the cubital, and the extreme apex of the discoidal cells; the majority of the wing-veins dark redbrown, but black in the basal half of the forewing; in the forewing, the stigma, the costal vein (as opposed to the subcostal vein), and the medial at base, in the hindwing all veins at base of wing, and the majority of the anal vein in both wings, yellow testaceous, but often appearing rather darker owing to setae.

I am indebted to the Imperial Institute of Entomology and to Mr. F. Laing, of the British Museum, for submitting to me for classification a small collection of Thysanoptera from Dr. J. Davidson, of the Waite Agricultural Research Institute, Glen Osmond, South Australia. The specimens reached me well preserved in alcohol, in tubes each labelled “S. Australia, Adelaide, month-1929, Dr. J. Davidson, from lucerne, rose-bushes, etc.” All measurements in this paper are in μ.

Malaya: Teluk Anson, 1 ♀, iii.1923 (G. H. Corbett), 3 ♀♀, 1 ♂, 18.iv.1930; Serdang, 1 ♀, 1 ♂, 17.i.1925 (G. H. Corbett); Kuala Lumpur, 1 ♀, 10.vii.1928 (G. H. Corbett & B. A. R. Gater).

Host. The three more recent series were bred from larvae of the Limacodid moth, Setora nitens, Walk.

In the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, 1929, in the introduction to my revision of the Indo-Australian and Ethiopian species of Microgaster, I stated my intention of writing subsequently for the related genus Microplitis a revision of the species from the same area. This I have done in the present paper, the slight alteration of title being necessary as no species of Microplitis have yet been described from the Ethiopian region.