Since its discovery in rodents by McCoy3 in California in 1911, tularaemia has been found to have a widespread distribution in North America. The same year it was described by Pearsd12 as an insect-borne disease. Francis1. in 1919- 1920 correlated these two manifestations and to him we owe most of our knowledge of the disease. It is now known to be contracted by man either by contact with infected animals or by the bites of flies or ticks which have become carriers through biting diseased rodents prior to attacking man, or even from the excreta of these insects.

A monograph of the lepidopterous genus Parnassius has recently appeared as Part 65 of that monumental undertaking “Das Tierreich.” The volume in question comprises nearly 800 closely printed pages and 698 illustrations. The author, Felix Bryk of the Zoological Museum of Berlin, Germany, has long posed as a specialist in this genus of butterflies and is the editor of a publication, “Parnassiana.”

Some recently discovered changes in nomenclature led to the preparation of a synopsis of the Nearctic species of Chloropisca, which is presented with notes upon the distribution as checked by the writer and a key to the eleven known species. Chloropisca sulfurifrons Duda is included with some doubt.

It is rather remarkable that among a group as common as Chloropisca so little is known regarding the life history and habits. Chloropisca glabra is the only species in which the life history is well known. Its larvae are predaceous upon root aphids,and are especially important predators of the sugar beet root aphis, Pemphigus betae Doane.

For some time I have suspected that spruce needles were eaten out by Oribatoid mites. h recent lot of spruce litter from the Great Smoky Mountains (North Carolina-Tennessee) made possible this investigation with the following results.

Firm, undecomposed needles hold no mites. They are first acted upon by fungi which reduce the cell contents and a good deal of the mesophyll. In this condition the needles are soft and punky. It is only then that the mites are able to lay their eggs in the needles. Most punky needles examined sheltered an immature Phthiracarid mite (October 28th), sometimes two. These mites were found at one end of their excavation, having left behind them a completely dismanted needle and a litter of faeces. They leave the walls intact so that each of these soft, white mites is completely sheltered within its needle. The last molt is effected intra muros. Adults may thus be found within an undamaged needle. When hard and brown the adult cuts its way out and seeks a mate in the wide, moist world of the lower litter layer. The entire life of such a species is thereiore spent in the one horizon of the forest floor (the F2 layer). The leaf is left, a thin walled tube, its central stele and sclerenchymatous tissues completely eaten out and reduced to a thin litter of minute faeces (less than 0.1 mm. long).

This is the first of a series of papers on North American Mordeliidae. It is intendled that the entire family will, in time, be taxononically covered and that keys to the members of various genera will be included.

Unless otherwise noted types of species hereafter described are to be found in the collection of the writer.

The dark or grayish bodied horseflies, superficially resembling Tabanus rhombicus O. S. or its variety osburni Hine, are among the abundant and trouble some species encountered in western and boreal North America. Four new species and the previously undescribed males of 6 others, together with a rather widely scattered literature have suggested the value of bringing together some notes on this rather heterogeneous group. Most of the species have 3 rows of pale markings on the abdomen, but a few are black with little or no indication of pattern; all here included have been placed in the subgenus Therioplectes, with hairy eyes in both sexes and an ocelligerous tubercle in the females. The numbers of specimens actually seen by me from various western states are included.

In the following paper descriptions are presented for three apparently undescribed species of Arctocorixa. Notes are included on some additional species and a redescription presented for Corisella tumida (Uhler).

Arctocorixa bicoloripennis n. sp.

Male.—Length 5.75 mm. Form and color pattern simulating A. penniensis Hungfd. but size a little smaller. Head short, vertex from above broadly arcuate continuous with margin of eyes. Width of vertex posteriorly between eyes equal to its median length. Face with a weak concavity extending dorsally slightly beyond lower margin of eyes and with greatest width distinctly less than interocular space. Inner margins of eyes only very slightly diverging ventrally. Post-ocular space narrow. Head with a few fine punctures and a few fine pale hairs, surface minutely coriaceous, shining. Antennae with apical segment slender, two-thirds as long as subapical segment.

Following are some additions and corrections to my arrangement of our species of Eanus (1930, Can. Ent. LXII. 161). Diacanthus parvicollis Mann (1853, Bull. Moscou XXVI, 230, from the Kenai peninsula of Alaska, is undoubtedly the male of decoratus Mann. As pointed out by Mr. Fall (1934, Jour. N. Y. Ent. SOC. XLII, 36), subarcticus Brown is a synonym of estriatus Lec.

The work of my assistant, Mr. A. N. Gartrell, in southern British Columbia during the season of 1935 has resulted in considerable additions to our knowledge of the genus Ameletus in thisprovince; not only have the nymphs of A. oregonensis McD. and vernalis McD. been tied down, but two new species have been discovered.

It is proposed to deal with these in the present article but before doing SO it might be well to call attention to an error which has crept into Traver's key to the adults (1935, Biology of Mayflies, 447) ; in this key the first caption reads “Several cross-veins in forewing margined with brown, so that wing appears speckled” and under this heading is included as first species validus McD. This is incorrect as the wings of validus are not speckled but lightly and evenly suffused with brownish-amber, and the species, if properly keyed, would fall into caption 6, where it is distinguished from shepardi Trav. apparently by the darker-colored abdominal segments. Similior McD., as second species under caption I, is also wrongly keyed; in this species the wings are practically clear hyaline and the correct keying would lead to caption 13 (alticolus McD.) to which species it is allied but differs in genitalic characters.

The species considered here are closely allied to those of the fallax and triundulatus groups and to the strongly characterized vernalis Hentz, hamatus Say, planulus Lec., and nigricollis Bland. All of these together form a natural group characterized by the general body form and type of vestiture and sculpture. The body is never cylindrical or very elongate. The posterior pronotal angles are short, broad basally, not at all convex, and not or very finely carinate. The propleura are not or only very shallowly emarginate at base, and the lateral margins of the elytra aremore broadly reflexed than usual. The vestiture is fine and abundant. The punctures of the pronotum and venter are quite fine and close, and the punctures are not or scarcely closer on the sides of the pronotum than at the middle of the pronotal disk.

The Scutacaridae are very little understood. Paoli divided the genera chiefly on the basis of presence or absence of ungual hooks on tarsi I and IV. This is patently a superficial and non-phylogenic character. Within a genus all grades of reduction of unguis are to be found so that it is quite conceivable that species without unguis may belong to genera with unguis. Furthermore in each genus one may find, if Paoli's figures are correct, species with dorsal segments, ranging in number from four to six. Yet number of transverse plates, usually regarded as an indication of number of somatic segments, is certainly a more fundamental character than ungual reduction. On the other hand it is quite difficult to determine with certainty the total number of transverse plates in some species. My experience leads me to regard the total number of plates as four, each bearing four bristles. At present this character will have to be disregarded.

This group, as here defined, includes those species having the prosternal sutures excavated in which the basal margins of the propleura are truncate rather than emarginate near the posterior prothoracic angles. They are closely allied to tessellatus L. (holosericeus Oliv.) of Europe. In all of the species, and in these species only, the hairs of the elytra are variously directed in whorls or partial whorls to produce a variegated appearance. The whorling tendency is well developed and very distinct on the elytra of all species except medianus in which only feeble traces of it are evident. The whorling seems equally developed in all examples of each species, but the spots resulting show some variation in their distribution and size. The hairs of the pronotum are strongly whorled in mirabilis only; in the other species, one sees a bright spot at each angle, one at the center, and one at the middle of the pronotal base which are due to directed hairs.

During the month of August, 1935, Mr. W. J. Brown, who accompanied the Arctic trip of the S. S. Nascopie, was enabled to make insect collections at Lake Harbor, on the south coast of Baffin Island.

The only species of Ephemeroptera obtained were two Baetids which were plentiful in both nymphal and adult state and for which definite associations between nymph and adult were secured.

The one species, which occurred in both sexes, bears so much resemblance to Acentrella lapponica Bngtsson. that I am holding it under this name pending an examination of some of the material by Professor Bengtsson. The second species, a typical Baetis, could only be found in the female sex, nor could Mr. Brown, in spite of diligent searching, discover any imales amlongst the mature nymphs in the brook; it would seem that the species was parthenogenetic, at 1east as far as thecycle emerging in August was concerned. On nymphal characters it falls in the bicaudatus group, with the middle tail reduced to a stub, but can at once be separated by the much larger and relatively narrower type of gill. The following description is offered as the species appears to be undescribed.

While working over long series of the various forms of P. smintheus, con- tained partly in the Canadian National Collection and partly loaned for study from various sources, I came across two male specimens, received in exchange several years ago from R. F. Sternitzky of San Francisco, and collected at Castle Lake, Siskiyou Co. Calif., a rather isolated locality at an altitude of about 6000 ft. in the mountains opposite Mt. Shasta to the west, and close to Mt. Bradley. As these specimens showed several unusual characters I at once got in touch with Mr. Sternitzky and other California collectors and was able to secure a good series for study; these specimens had apparently all been collected by Messrs. L. Martin and W. B. Davis and were recorded by the latter (1932, Bull. S. Calif. Acad. Sci. XXX, 93) under the name of sminthcus var. magnus Wgt. As these additional specimens show in the main the same distinguishing features that had been noted in the original two, I believe that a good race is indicated, and, in spite of the fact that 1 have been recently rather critical of certain European authors for establishing races of smintheus on inadequate characters, 1 venture to describe it,taking much pleasure in naming it after the enthusiastic collector from whom the specimens were first received.

Color : Entire body light yellow tinged with pale green; legs pale yellow; wings hyaline.

Measurements : Alate viviparae-Body length, 2.18 mm. ; width across eyes, .435 mm.; hind tarsi, . 115 mm.; antenna, 1.49 mm.-1.51 mm.; 111, .53 to .57 mm. ; IV, .30 to .34 mm. ; V, .33 to .35 mm. ; VI, .184 plus .I15 mm. ; cornicles, .023 mm. long. Cauda .06 mm. from neck, .115 mm. entire length.

This group includes, besides semivittatus Say, trivittatus Lec., and the recently described castanicolor Fall, two species which have been confused with semivittatus and two others which have been identified as fuscu1us Lec. The species agree well among themselves in body form, type of sculpture, and type of aedfagus, and differ from each other mainly in characters of the antennae and vestiture and in color.

The Pediculoididae are so strongly sexually dimorphic that there is little resemblance between the sexes, necessitating two sets of keys. As I am particularly interested in the females, they only are here discussed.

In Pediculoides the abdomen tapers posteriad to a blunt point, in all the other genotypes the abdomen is more or less truncate and angular behind. Pygmephorus (often misspelled) has tarsi I swollen and much longer than tibiae I. In Pediculopsis they are subequal. Resinacarus also has large tarsi I. In figure 12 the line around the middle of tarsi I is to be taken as a constriction rather than a segmental boundary. The bristles of legs I are not identical in figures 9 and 12, nor are the bristles of dorsal plates I and III. Resinacarus has three pairs of prothoracic bristles while the type of Pygmephorus has two pairs.

In a recent number of the Canadian Entomologist I presented a generic key to the female Pediculoididae and described a new species of Pygmephorus. I now add three more species to this genus. Types are to be deposited at the United States National Museum.

Approximately 75 species of Artemisia, or sage, occur in the Rocky Mountain region, many of these being infested by aphids, often to a considerable extent. The great economic importance of several specis of Artemisia as food for range livestock and the incomplete knowledge of the aphids attacking them in Utahled the writers to undertake this study. Most of the report deals with the apterous forms which are most frequently encountered and which possess good specific characters for identification.

Walsingham described this species from a variable series of specimens taken in Colusa, Shasta and Siskiyou Cos., Calif. No definite type is designated but from correspondence with Mr. W. H. T. Tams of the ,British Museum I find that the author marked his types "Type I" and "Type II." Type I, the obvious holotype, is labelled "Pit River, Shasta Co. California, VII, 1871, P1. 2, fig. 13" and according to Mr. Tams is much the tawnier of the two "types." Type II is labelled "Uncle Sam Mount, Lake Co. Calif. VI, 1871, PI. 2, fig. 14" and, as the figure shows, is a pale, immaculate form. Barnes and Lindsey make californica Grin. (1908, Can. Ent. XL,, 321) from S. Calif. a synonym and describe the color of the forewings as creamy-white to tawny-brown, the latter color being that given by Grinnell in his description of californica.