The seed-corn maggot, Hylemya cilicrura (Rond.), is a cosmopolitan pest and feeds on a wide range of hosts. The maggots cause extensive damage to seeds and seedlings of beans, soybeans, peas, corn, and cucurbits. Hitherto laboratory investigations have been hampered because the maggot has been very difficult to rear continuously.

Biological studies have indicated that such diverse diets as soybeans (Harukawa et al., 1934), cottonseed meal and fish meal (Reid, 1940), and potato (Leach, 1926) serve to rear the maggot to the adult stage. However, it has been difficult to maintain an adult colony for the time required for mating and oviposition. Reid (1940) used field-collected flies as a source of eggs in his experiments, but failed to get a second generation. Successive generations were reared by Ristich (1950), who provided a high protein diet for adults held in glass cages; in attempts to follow this method at Chatham, only one complete generation could be reared. A more satisfactory method of rearing the species continuously is described in this paper.

This paper describes females and some of the larval stages and male “puparia” for species of Lecanium known to occur in Canada. Also, it tenders a solution toward establishing a name for a North American species that has been confused with L. corni Bouché as identified by Marchal (1908).

Coniferous timber in the Douglas-Fir Region is commonly subject to attack by ambrosia beetles of the families Scolytidae and Platypodidae. In view of the variety and extent of damage there is need for a ready method of identifying the ambrosia beetles causing major losses. It is the purpose of this paper to present methods of identifying the genera of ambrosia beetles found in the Douglas-Fir Region, by the general body shape of the insect, the diameter of the tunnel the beetles bore and the shape of the wood borings which they eject from these tunnels. These methods were developed by the author from original work conducted at Corvallis, Oregon in 1955-56 as part of his master's thesis at Oregon State College. Kinghorn, in Canada, developed similar methods of distinguishing ambrosia beetle damage and recently published means of differentiating the work of Gnathotrichus, from Trypodendron (Kinghorn, 1957).

The fecundity of the migratory grasshopper, Melanoplus bilituratus (Wlk.), when reared under a variety of conditions, has been reported by a number of authors. In the laboratory, Barnes (1955), rearing cultures of the subspecies found in Arizona on five separate foods, obtained an average production of 8.8 egg-pods per female from those fed the most favourable diet; Parker (1930) reported an average production of 8.8 egg-pods per female from Montana specimens reared on a mixed diet; one of these females laid 15 egg-pods. Under field conditions, Pfadt (1949) in Wyoming and Smith et al. (1952) in Manitoba reared this species on a variety of food plants and reported that the greatest numbers of egg-pods per female resulting from use of the most favourable food plants were 9.8 and about 6 egg-pods, respectively.

Approximately 32 million cocoons of 11 species of spruce- and pine-feeding sawflies were collected in Europe and Japan from 1933 to 1940 and sent to the Belleville laboratory for rearing parasites for release in Canada against the European spruce sawfly, Diprion hercyniae (Htg.). Over half a million of the cocoons were Diprion polytomum (Htg.) and the parasites that emerged from these were discussed in previous papers (Finlayson and Reeks, 1936; Finlayson and Finlayson, in preparation). In addition to cocoons, almost half a million eggs of Neodiprion sertifer (Geoff.) were collected in Europe and reared to obtain egg parasites.

Previous work (11) showed that two species of grasshoppers, Melanoplus bivittatus (Say) and Camnula pellucida (Scudd.), normally prefer a dry atmosphere. The present paper deals with the effects of starvation and of moulting on the humidity reactions of these species.

Materials and Methods

To test the effect of starvation on humidity reactions, adults of the two species from laboratory-reared cultures were used. Each adult was placed in a separate, cylindrical, plastic-screen cage, which mas eight inches long, two inches in diameter, and corked at both ends, The caged insects, without food or water, were placed for four or five days, or until death, in racks in a rearing room maintained at 30 ± 0.5°C. and 46 ± 1 per cent relative humidity. At intervals triplicated samples of ten adults, of one species and sex, were removed from the cages to test their reactions to alternative humidities of 0 and 90 per cent in an olfactometer (11).

Specimens recently received for identification from Dr. C. Bernard Lewis, Institute of Jamaica, Kingston, proved to belong to the widely distributed Neotropical species Sparagmia gigantalis Guenée, described from NouvelleFribourg, Brazil. These specimens agree with others from Jamaica in the collection of Mr. N. Shoumatoff, New Yorlr, in having the ground colour of a much brighter orange than in South American specimens, in having the transverse lines somewhat weaker, and in having the submarginal violaceaus patch of the fore wing relatively pale. These characters are not duplicated in the long series from various parts of Central and South America with which I have compared the Jamaican specimens, and I accordingly designate the latter as Sparagmia gigantalis shouwatoffi, new subspecies, with type material as follows: Holotype, male, “Monigue” [Moneague], St. Ann, Jamaica, July 19, 1933, A. Avinoff and N. Shoumatoff; allotype, female, Baron Hill, Trelawny, Jamaica, October, 1931, Lilly Perkins; one male paratype, Greenhills, Hardwar Gap, Jamaica, July 17, 1936, E. Paine; these specimens in the collection of N. Shoumatoff, deposited at the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh. AdditionaI paratypes as follows: in the Canadian National Collection, one male, Christiana, Jamaica, August, 1940, and one female, Jacks Hill, St. Andrew, Jamaica, Aug. 5, 1951, J. V. Neish, type No.6460, C.N.C.; in the Institute of Jamaica, one male, Jacks Hill, St. Andrew, Jamaica, Aug. 5, 1951, J. V. Neish, this specimen with most of the fore wing suffused with dark brown.

There have been several speculations as to the origin and significance of the pupa. One that has had considerable vogue is based on the interpretation, by Lubbock (1883), Berlese (1913) and others, of the larva as a free-living embryo prematurely hatched before it has attained the form characteristic of the adult. A nymph, according to this theory, has completed its embryonic development in the egg where it passed through stages corresponding to those of the larva and attained the form of the adult before hatching. This concept assumes, therefore, that the pupal stage is the equivalent of all of the nymphal instars compressed into a single instar. There are many objections to this theory of which the following may be given. Development from the larva to the adult is not continuous. There is evidence that larval and adult structures are determined independently in the embryo, and the development of the one and the suppression of the other are controlled by the endocrine system. Furthermore, changes in hormone balance which take place in the last nymphal instar of the Exopterygota result in the development of the adult, while similar changes in the last larval instar of the Endopterygota bring about the development of the pupa. For this and other reasons the pupa must be regarded as an adult instar and not as a larval or nymphal instar.

The dispersal of the pine needle scale has long been a problem to entomologists. Although its transfer on nursery stock has been accepted as a means of dispersal, the method of its spread from tree to tree in a localized area has not been investigated previously. There are two stages in its development when it is able to move about by its own volition: the crawler or first instar nymphs wander for short distances on the twigs of the host tree and the adult males move about freely. Effective spread of this scale occurs only in the crawler stage. Phoresy is unlikely because nymphs have extreme difficulty in crossing small gaps such as would be encountered in transferring from a needle to an insect or bird and parent scales do not secrete substances attractive to carriers as described by Mahdihassan (1933) for some lac-insects. Because of the limited motility of the first instar nymphs, dissemination by wind required investigation.

One of the most important factors limiting the use of coccinellid beetles in the biological control of certain insect pests is the difficulty experienced in rearing sufficient quantities. The standard method of rearing them on suitable hosts is often impracticable because of their restrictive diets. Such difficulties were encountered when the introduction of some coccinellid beetles was attempted in French Morocco, as a control measure for a coccid (Parlatoria blanchardi Targ.) on date trees. The problem of rearing or obtaining the host in sufficient quantity greatly hampered the production of the predators. For this reason, considerable time and effort was devoted to the development of a satisfactory and economic technique for the breeding of these predators on artificial media.

At the Vancouver laboratory a large number of cages were needed to confine aphids to single leaves in virus transmission experiments. The cages had to be of simple construction, light, and easily manipulared. The cage developed was similar to that of MacGillivray and Anderson (1957), but was simpler to make, and the materials were easily obtained locally. The materials are: acrylic plastic tubing, metal hair-curl clips, foam rubber, corks to fit the tubing, and muslin.

This species is closely related to Triaspis (T.) halidayi Martin, from South Dakota, and Triaspis (T.) kurtogaster Martin, from eastern North America. In all three species the abdominal carapace is relatively strongly longitudinally rugoso-punctate and apically emarginate, and the clypeus is transverse. The new species may be readily distinguished from kurtogaster by its non-reflexed margin of the clypeus and by its less strongly developed marginal lamella of the third abdominal tergite, and may be separated from halidayi by its stronger, coarser, general rugoseness and darker colour.

The larva of the wheat stem sawfly, Cephus cinctus Nort. feeds entirely within a single host stem and is structurally adapted to this environment (Holmes 1954). Consequently an artificial rearing technique should provide a nutritionally adequate diet in a physical environment which will satisfy the structural needs of the insect. This note describes attempts to rear larvae of the wheat stem sawfly under artificial conditions.

The fungus Metarrhizium anisopliae (Metch.) Sor., which causes a disease in insects known as green-muscardine, was first used by Metchnikoff in 1879 to infect insects artificially. Subsequently it was widely tested as a control agent with a few encouraging results (Steinhaus, 1949).

From 1951 to date the disease was common in a moderately dense population of the introduced elaterid wireworm Agriotes obscurus (L.) near Dartmouth, and much less prevalent in a very dense population of a related introduced species, A. sputator (L.), near Digby. The higher incidence of the disease near Dartmouth was tentatively attributed to the fact that this area has greater annual rainfall and is more subject to coastal fogs than is Digby. These observations led to the culturing and testing of the fungus in the laboratory and to attempts to increase the incidence of the disease at both Digby and Dartmouth by artificial dissemination of the spores in the soil.

Riegert et al. (1954) showed that nymphs and adults of Carnula pellucida (Scudd.) and Melanoplus mexicanus (Sauss.) released on bare, cultivated fields, dispersed up to 240 yards during six days. They showed no ability to orient themselves and move toward a food supply. Sixty per cent of M. mexicanus were within 50 yards of the release point after seven days. Experiments conducted from the Belleville laboratory in 1952 and 1953 showed that M. mexicanus dispersed less widely than this when released in a field population of grasshoppers, mostly M. mexicanus, where there was adequate food. This investigation was of special interest to the junior author (R. W. Smith), who was interested in relating the field distribution of adult parasites (as shown by the occurrence of immature parasites in captured grasshoppers) to various environmental factors. The validity of using such data for this purpose would depend upon the movement of the host from the time of parasitization to the time of capture. The following are details of the investigation.

The two new species of fleas described in this paper are of unusual interest. The first belongs to the well-known genus Catallagia Rothschild (Hystrichopsyllidae: Neopsyllinae), but is notable for the extreme modification of the male genitalia, a condition not reflected in the female; the second, a bird flea, belongs to Ornithophaga Mikulin (Leptopsyllidae: Amphipsyllinae), a remarkable genus recently described from the U.S.S.R. on the basis of one female specimen.

Factors promoting wing production in aphids have been studied extensively by many workers (Ackerman, 1926; Bonnemaison, 1951; Ewing, 1925, 1926; Lal, 1952, 1955; Shull, 1926-1942; Wadley, 1923; and White, 1946), who advanced theories based on experimental results with different species but generally considered to be applicable to all aphids. La1 (1952, 1953) reviewed this literature. The experiment reported here indicates that the theories previously advanced do not apply equally to all species.

Although many traps have been designed to study the responses of Lepidoptera to light sources of various intensities and qualities (Gui et al., 1942; Taylor and Deay, 1950; Glick and Hollingsworth, 1954; Merkl and Pfrimmer, 1955; Frost, 1957), few have been designed for studies of flight periodicity. The first one designed for the latter purpose was described by Seamans and Gray (1934). It consisted of seven individual collecting units built into one structure, each unit being operated for one hour of the night. Interval light traps subsequently designed by Hutchins (1940), Nagel and Granovsky (1947), and Coon (Frost, 1952) are of the Minnesota type (Frost, 1952), having a lamp bulb, hood, baffle and funnel. Beneath the funnel is a turntable, which brings a series of collecting jars under the spout of the funnel at regulated intervals. The Rothamstead trap (Williams, 1935, 1948) is also based on a bottle-changing mechanism.

Normally the sugar-beet root aphid, Pemphigus betae Doane, lives and feeds on sugar-beet roots below ground during the summer and fall. However, in many beet fields between Lethbridge and Monarch, Alberta, in September, 1956, a large number of these aphids were found on the soil surface and on the crowns and leaves of the plants. Many of the aphids had crawled up the plants and, even after death, remained clinging to the leaves (Fig. 1). This clinging reaction seemed similar to that of grasshoppers infected with Entomophthora grylli Fresen. Mr. R. B. Baird, Entomology Laboratory, Canada Department of Agriculture, Belleville, Ontario, identified the organism causing the disease destroying these aphids as Entomophthora aphidis Hoffm. This is the first record of this disease killing subterranean aphids in Canada. The only other reports of E. aphidis on root aphids are those of Maxson (1916) in Colorado and Charles (1941) in California. In Canada, it has been previously reported as a factor in control of the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum (Harr.), in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia (MacLeod, 1953).