Trogoderma parabile, a Nearctic species, was first described by Beal in 1954. In 1956 he reported it as a fairly common pest of granaries in California. In 1957, E. A. R. Liscombe (personal communication) recovered all stages of T. parabile in large numbers from flour mills and feed warehouses in Southern Alberta. In 1958, Brooks reported it from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where it occurred in several feed mills and was found infesting grain samples stored in small envelopes in the Science Service building. These reports are the first records of T. parabile in Canada. A closely-related Eurasian species, Trogoderma granarium Everts, is a serious pest of stored cereal products in hot dry parts of the world and is well-established in some parts of the United States and the United Kingdom but is not found in Canada. T. parabile, however, can adapt itself to colder conditions and may become a pest of economic importance in some parts of Canada.

In most entomological textbooks and other general summaries the pupae of the order Trichoptera are characterized as having strong mandibles which are used to make a hole through the pupal enclosure, thereby permitting the escape of the pharate adult. For the vast majority of caddisfly genera for which pupae are known this description is probably accurate enough, but it is somewhat less than accurate to describe the pupae of all caddisflies in this way.

During life history investigations on Xyela minor Norton (Hymenoptera, Xyelidae), larvae of two species of gelechiid moths were found feeding in the staminate cones of digger pine, Pinus sabiniana, along with the Xyela larvae. These moths are Exoteleia burkei Keifer (1931) and Chionodes sabinianae Powell (1959), the latter having been described from material collected during rhe course of our investigations. Exoteleia and Chionodes are not closely related genera within the family Gelechiidae, and the two species are related in the present study only by larval habitat.

A spruce budworm outbreak started in Quebec and adjoining parts of New Brunswick in 1949 and spread each year until by 1955 most balsam fir stands within an area of 32,000 square miles were attacked. Approximately 45 per cent of this area was in the Lower St. Lawrence and Gaspe regions of Quebec. In Quebec, important population reductions took place in various sectors of the outbreak area as a result of unfavourable weather conditions in 1956 and 1957 (Blais, 1958a, 1958b), and the final collapse occurred in 1958 when populations returned to the endemic level throughout the area (Blais and Martineau, 1958). In New Brunswick, a relatively small outbreak area remained at the end of the summer in 1958 (Webb et al., 1959). The large-scale aerial applications of DDT begun in New Brunswick in 1952, and in Quebec in 1954, were continued until 1958. Biological studies in connection with the spraying were carried out in both provinces. In Quebec these studies consisted of assessing spruce budworm population fluctuations in both sprayed and unsprayed areas and in determining, where possible, the causes for these fluctuations. All factors associated with changes in population could not be adequately measured over such a large territory, but a real attempt was made to obtain information on parasitism. The present paper deals with this aspect of the studies.

The species of the genus Hybomitra (Tylostypia) have been most vigorous of the family Tabanidae in colonizing the boreal regions. However, the number of holarctic Tabanidae of this genus is surprisingly few in consideration of the 53 species assigned to North America and the 86 to Eurasia. Only H. sexfasciata (Hine; borealis “Lw.” of authors), H. aequetincta (Becker) and H. epistates (O.S.) in addition to Chrysops nigripes Zett. have crossed the northern Atlantic and/or Pacific Oceans (Philip, 1956). It is not surprising therefore to discover that there is an additional holarctic species which has been known under two different names in the Old and New Worlds.

The emphasis in mosquito identification has been centered for the most part on the fourth-instar, or mature, larval stage and on both sexes of the adult forms. Some stress in recent years has been placed on pupal and egg morphology; however, as pointed out by Bohart (1954) and others, in comparison with the vast amount of literature on these stages, the amount of work published on the identification of early-instar mosquito larvae has been relatively slight. Regardless of the reasons for this, it would be, for instance, of immeasurable value to a person studying mosquito ecology to be able to identify directly to species any larval stage of the mosquito that he might collect. It is hoped that this paper, even though limited to Minnesota Aedes, will contribute further to the ability to recognize first-instar Aedes larvae and that it will serve as an added stimulus to workers in other geographical areas to collect and assimilate materials in a similar manner.

The concern caused by extensive killing of marketable Douglas-fir Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco, in the interior of British Columbia by the Douglas-fir beetle, Dendroctonus pseudotsugae Hopk., has necessitated studies on many phases of the beetles' biology and behaviour. Among these has been a study of the beetles' flight. Although this insect flies for only a few brief periods during its life, these periods are vital in terms of the extension and location of areas of infestation.

Stands of trembling aspen in Manitoba and Saskatchewan are frequently attacked by the forest tent caterpillar, Malacosoma disstria Hbn. The recent history of attack is reviewed in this paper to determine if there is evidence of a consistent pattern of outbreaks and if the latest of these had any appreciable effect on aspen stands in the two provinces.

The discovery of Camilla glabra (Fallen) in Ottawa, Canada, is the first record of the existence in the New World of any member of the interesting little family Camillidae. A single male specimen taken June 15, 1954, by D. G. F. Cobb while collecting insects in her garden, would seem to indicate the species is established here.

The family Camillidae consists of the single genus Camilla Haliday, which for many years was assigned to the family Drosophilidae. Frey, (1921) considered it sufficiently differentiated from the Drosophilidae to warrant separate status and erected the family Camillidae to receive it. Duda (1934), Wheeler (1952, p. 164), and Collin (1956) all recognized the group as a family distinct from the Drosophilidae. More recently, Hennig (1958, p. 665) placed it as a separate family in the Drosophiloidea, pointing out that while it has certain characters in common with Curtonotidae and Drosophilidae, it shows even more affinities with Diastatidae and Ephydridae.

During May, 1959, a number of uncommon species of Scarabaeidae were collected in or near the Big Bend National Park, Brewster Co., Texas. The object of this paper is to give distribution and habitat data on some of the rarer species and to describe one new species of Phyllophaga. Because much of the material is still unmounted, a complete list of species taken is not practical, nor can the exact number of specimens taken be given in some cases.

Cyzenis albicans (Fall.) has been introduced into Nova Scotia as a control measure against the winter moth, Operophtera brumata (L.). The parasite attacks the late larval stages of the winter moth, pupates within the host in the ground, and emerges in the spring. The first liberations were made at Oak Hill near Bridgewater and the dates of releases as well as the numbers released were reported by Graham (1958) as follows: 1954, 31; 1955, 1008; 1956, 1005; 1957, 250. Graham made recoveries of C. albicans from rearings of larvae collected at Oak Hill in 1956 and 1957 and found that parasitism was less than two per cent both years. While liberations have been made at other locations in the Province since 1957, no further releases have been made at or near Oak Hill.

The statement of Criddle (1917) that grasshopper outbreaks are associated with periods of dry weather has been repeated by many authors, but a close relationship has never been demonstrated.

Parker (1933) showed that at six localities in the United States grasshopper outbreaks during the period 1915-1933 had been preceded by periods of two to four years when either rainfall had been below normal during May-June or temperature had been above normal during July-September. Similarly Smith (1954) concluded that between 1910 and 1953 outbreaks in Kansas had been preceded by two years of sub-normal rainfall. Parker's charts show that grasshopper outbreaks generally followed periods of hot weather, but the charts of both authors show that only about half the time did outbreaks follow periods of dry weather – a situation that could be largely due to chance.

MacCarthy (1956) calculated the correlation coefficients between weather factors and populations of M. bilituratus (Walker) in five large areas of Saskatchewan during the period 1943-1952. His tables show generally insignificant correlation with total precipitation and only with mean minimum monthlv temperature in June of the previous year was there significant correlation in all five areas.

The present investigation was undertaken in an attempt to determine whether a sufficiently close relationship between grasshopper populations and climate could be found for use in predicting grasshopper outbreaks.

In a recent communication, Hoopingarner and Farrar (1959) report that the weight of the queen honeybee is genetically controlled, and that a proportional relationship exists between body weight and the number of ovarian tubules. These statements corroborate the findings by Eckert (1934) who found that the number of ovarioles tends to be influenced by hereditary factors. In a subsequent study Eckert (1937) was unable to correlate number of ovarioles with actual brood production. Whether a queen with a greater body weight is capable of laying more eggs than a small and lightweight queen remained to be determined; hence the present study was undertaken.

Experiments conducted in the greenhouse and in the field by Perron et al. (1958) on 44 varieties of Allium revealed that the varieties Nebuka and Hishiko of A. fistulosum (L.) were significantly more resistant to attacks by the onion maggot, Hylemya antiqua (Meig.), than varieties of A. cepa (L.). This is a report of experiments conducted in 1957 and 1958 in the greenhouse and in the field on the attractiveness of seven of these varieties to oviposition by H. antiqua.

The immature stages and adults of Chaoborus borealis Cook were collected near Churchill, Manitoba, in 1949 and 1950 in investigations on the natural control of biting flies (James, 1953; James and Smith, 1958). Cook (1956) described the adult and the fourth-instar larva in his revision of the Nearctic Chaoborinae, and noted the similarity between the fourth-instar larva and that of C. flavicans (Mg.). This paper contains descriptions of the egg, the first-, second-, and fourth-instar larvae, and the pupa of C. borealis.

In 1957 James R. Beer, Edwin F. Cook and Robert G. Schwab, of the University of Minnesota, conducted an investigation of mammals and their ectoparasites in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona. The area studied included varied habitats in the general vicinity of the Southwestern Research Station of the American Museum of Natural History at Portal. An account of this investigation has now been published (Beer et al., 1959).

The seed-corn maggot, Hylemya cilicrura (Rond.), infests a wide range of hosts in all provinces of Canada and is also a pest in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. H. liturata (Meig.) frequently occurs in smaller numbers along with H. cilicrura. H. liturata has not ,been recorded from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba (Brooks, 1951). Detailed accounts of the species have not been published by Canadian entomologists, though H. cilicrura has been known as a pest of cultivated crops in Canada for over 70 years. In southwestern Ontario the seed-corn maggot is one of the most serious soil pests of vegetables and field crops.

In the course of studies on Neodiprion swainei Midd. carried out in 1958 and 1959 in the region of Lake St. John, Que., mass migrations of Neodiprion swainei Midd. were observed. This paper gives a brief description of this phenomenon, which has never been reported heretofore, and discusses some of its implications.

On hatching from the eggs which are laid on the needles of the current growth of jack pine, Pinus banksiana Lamb., N. swainei larvae crawl to the old foliage where they feed in colonies of 40 to 70 individuals. At times, when larval populations become so great that all the foliage is destroyed, mass migration begins. The larvae gather in large clusters at the top of the tree where they remain for two or three days. At this time some of the larvae moult. The larvae then abandon the tree by crawling down the tnink or by dropping to the ground. They then creep on the ground, up and down stumps, in search of jack-pine trees with foliage. The migrating larvae are pale yellow in colonr, probably as a result of their starved condition, and large nutnbers perish before they can become established on proper food. Those that manage to reach new food supplies quickly recover their original dark-green pigmentation.

Swaine (1918) recognized 31 species of Pityophthorus. Subsequently 91 new species have been described (Blackman 1920, 1921, 1922a, 1922b, 1928; Swaine 1925; Schedl 1930, 1931) making a total of 122. Some have been transferred to other genera, and others have been placed in synonymy (Blackman 1928; Wood 1957) leaving 115 species now recognized. The following description of a new species was prepared after examination of 50 species of Pityophthorus, including examples from the U.S. National Museum, the Canadian National Collection, and Forest Biology Laboratories across Canada. The loan of this material is greatly appreciated. No species have been described previously from alpine larch, Larix lyallii Parl. The description is based on examination at a magnification of 50 times.