In his catalogue of the Anophelini (1924) Christophers admitted only one genus the tribe, which he divided into five subgenera: Anopheles (s. str.), Nyssorhynchus, Myzomyia, Bironella and Chagasia. The position of the first three as subgenera Anopheles is now universally accepted, but the arguments in favour of recognising the other two as distinct genera are worth consideration.

During a recent dry spell in the Brisbane area the canal situated at Nundah, known as Schultz's, had become silted, and various aquatic and other weeds had taken possession of the bed. Owing to pollution from a sewer, produced higher up, Culex fatigans, as is usual on such occasions, was breeding amongst the aquatic vegetation consisting mainly of Eichhornia speciosa (Water Hyacinth), Hydrilla verticillata (Water Thyme) and Jussiaea repens (Yellow Primrose). The large quantities of Characeae, usually so abundant in this canal during wet tunes, had completely disappeared.

Stibaropus tabulatus, Schiödte, a Pentatomid bug of the subfamily Cydninae, is remarkable in having the unusual habit of living underground and attacking the roots of tobacco, and to the best of the writer's knowledge this is the first record of this species as an insect of economic importance; though Lefroy has mentioned the allied S. molginus, Schiödte, in his “Indian Insect Life” (p. 674) as having been observed at the roots of a palm in South India at a considerable depth below the surface. As the insect under report was something of a novelty and was a pest of such a valuable crop like tobacco, the writer made special efforts to study its life-history and habits, and it is the aim of this paper to place on record the results of his observations and studies, though he regrets that they are somewhat fragmentary in character.

The following investigation of the development of Laccifer lacca, Kerr, was carried out in the Department of Zoology, Lucknow University, under the supervision of Professor K. N. Bahl, D.Sc, D.Ph., to whom I am much indebted for the extensive facilities enjoyed in his laboratory.

♀. Head shining green; face and front with purplish shine. Thorax orange-yellow, with a small black spot on each side of the pronotum; mesopleurae and propodeon slightly brownish. Abdomen aeneous-black, with dark green shine near the end; first segment (except two brown spots at the sides) and second segment (except hind border) whitish. Valvae of ovipositor white. Antennae brown, with scape and pedicel yellow. Wings dark brown, with the base and a bent stripe in the middle hyaline. Legs brownish yellow, with the trochanters and tip of tibiae and tarsi clearer yellow; base of hind coxae and a stripe on the inner side of middle and hind femora dark brown.

The galleries of the bark-beetles are as a rule such characteristic features of the different species that sometimes these are more easily recognised by the shape of their galleries than by their own structure, as, for example, in the case of the two pine-beetles, Blastophagus piniperda and B. minor, in which the distinguishing features of the insects cannot be discerned without the help of a good pocket-lens. But, on the other hand, the galleries of many species are subject to a certain amount of variation and show typical modifications which are responses to various external factors, such as the size of the trunk or of the branches, the thickness of the bark, and the orientation of the trunk, viz., whether the tree is standing or felled.

♂. Palpus light buff. Antennal shaft honey-yellow with sparse light buff scales. Head and thorax light buff tinged with warm buff. Tergum cartridge-buff, proximal two segments warm buff; pectus cartridge-buff. Legs light buff. Venter light buff. Fore wing light buff tinged with warm buff; veins slightly infuscate; a fuscous black discocellular dot; two series of fuscous dots on the veins beyond the cell, the first deeply bowed (concavity basad) from vein 7 to vein 2, sometimes forming a fuscous line continuing beyond vein 2 and bending to run obliquely into inner margin just before middle; the second series less deeply bowed, from vein 8 to vein 2; a terminal series of interneural black dots. Hind wing whitish, slightly tinged with cartridge-buff, tinged with light buff along costa; faint traces of fuscous interneural terminal dots. Underside of fore-wing light buff tinged along costa and sometimes beyond cell with warm buff; of hind wing whitish tinged with cartridge-buff, costa suffused with light buff. Expanse 30 mm.

The lac insects have, in recent years, been the object of extensive attention, partly on account of their economic importance, and partly on account of the biological interest that invests them. What the late Professor Lefroy had remarked about the Aphids in his “Indian Insect Life” may well have been said of these also but for the appearance of Chamberlin's Monograph (Bull. Ent. Res., xiv, 1923, pp. 147–122; xvi, 1925, pp. 31–42), which supplied a long-needed treatise on the subject. The weakness of this monograph, however, has seemed to me to be the insufficient treatment of the Indian forms, which was, evidently, due to lack of material, and it has therefore seemed desirable to undertake a study of the Indian lac insects in order to fill in the lacunae in this otherwise excellent monograph.

In a field of ground-provisions growing near the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture at St. Augustine, Trinidad, it was noticed, in November 1928, that the leaves of cassava (Manihot utilissima, L.), which formed a large part of the crop, were attacked by a gall-forming insect. Urich (1915, p. 39) has recorded a gall-midge (Lasioptera sp.) as occurring in Trinidad, with one or two Hymenopterous parasites, and Bequaert (1926, p. 205) states that Felt (1921) reports having received Cecidomyia manihot, Felt, from Trinidad (collected by F. W. Urich).

The nut gall-mite (Eriophyes avellanae, Nal.) is one of the commonest species of gall-mites that occurs in this country, and it may be found infesting the buds of hazel (Corylus avellana) in almost any hedgerow and copse where this plant grows. The species is found also in America and in Continental Europe. Its life-cycle is very similar to that of the black currant gall-mite, E. ribis (Westw.) Nal.

None of the species so far described under Urosigalphus is known to me, but Cameron's Rhyssosigalphus is clearly a synonym of Ashmead's interesting genus.

Szépligeti (Genera Insectorum, fasc. 22b, 1904, p. 90) synonymised Urosigalphus under Sigalphus, Latr. (i.e., Triaspis, Hal.); I do not know what authority he had for his action, which was ignored by subsequent writers (Crawford, 1907, 1914; Cushman, 1922).

The following notes are based on material submitted to me for study by the Imperial Bureau of Entomology. The drawings were made by Mr. D. E. Kimmins.

Palestine: 10, ♂♂, 2 ♀♀ from Jaffa, Jericho, Jerusalem and Haifa, 1924 (G. F. Hucklesby), 1929 (J. Tapukhi). China: Shantung, 4 ♂♂ from Tsinan and Taishan, 1926 (E. Hindle).

Of the four moths dealt with in this paper, three are known to damage coconut palms in Celebes, and the fourth behaves similarly in the Gold Coast. Three of the species are here described as new. The opportunity has been taken to figure the larvae as well as the imagines of the Celebes species, and to include figures of Orthocraspeda catenatus, Snellen, of which two larvae and a pair of imagines were received with the other Celebes material. The short descriptions of the larvae are taken, with slight modifications, from Mr. A. Reyne's letter which accompanied the specimens. All the material concerned has been generously presented to the British Museum (Natural History) by the Director of the Imperial Institute of Entomology.

1. The Hemipterous fauna of the tobacco plant in Rhodesia during the growing season is confined to a Coreid, Aleurodid, Jassid and a Capsid.

2. A description of the adult and various instars of the Capsid, Engytatus volucer, Kirk., is given.

3. The habits of the insect on tobacco are discussed.

4. Attempted transmission of tobacco mosaic by Hemiptera found on tobacco plants failed.

5. Further experiments with the macerated contents of the thorax of E. volucer have proved it to cause a rolling and puckering of the leafsurface, which is termed “crinkle.”

6. Crinkle is caused by the poisonous nature of the saliva which spreads rapidly through the interior of the leaf. The salivary action does not affect localised centres to any appreciable extent so as to cause a “shot-hole” effect, as observed with other Capsids. The feeding sites are only noticeable when the leaf is held up to the light; rapid translocation currents cause its action to be spread over larger areas.

7. The injury is aggravated in weakened plants grown under adverse conditions, such as the striking of a hard pan in the sub-soil or a stone, or water deficiency.

8. Control can be effectively carried out by thorough cultivation of the soil, and the choosing of suitable sub-soils for root development. Early planting in December is recommended, or even earlier if rains are suitable, so that the plants will be well established before the height of infestation in April.

It is now more than twenty-five years since his useful “Key to Families of Coleopterous Larvae” was published by Macgillivray. Since that time descriptions of many larvae and representatives of a considerable number of families, then unknown, have been made available, and research on the taxonomy of families and super-families has added very considerably to our knowledge of the early stages of beetles. Without being invidious, it may not be out of place to mention the work of Saalas on spruce-beetles, of Verhoeff on several families and especially the Clavicorn group, of d'Orchymont on the Hydrophilidae, of de Peyerimhoff on the larvae of several obscure families, and, not least of these, that of Böving made known in a number of papers on the species, families and super-families of this order of insects. These and many others, too numerous to mention here, but whose names will in most cases be found in the bibliography, have made notable additions to our knowledge since the publication of Macgillivray's work.

1. Fly rounds and reconnaissances about Sambala have indicated the following types of fly community: (a) Compact “female centres” characterised by frequent passage of game, and showing high apparent female percentage and often apparent concentration of fly; (b) “spread centres” over larger areas believed to be comparable in function to true, compact “female centres”; (c) “male areas” spread over large areas of Berlinia-Brachystegia and sometimes other kinds of wooding, where the apparent female percentage is low; (d) areas where fly is scarce.

2. Investigation of these phenomena by field experiments and other methods has led to the conclusion that the “female centres” and “spread centres” are most probably feeding-grounds of fly, and that the “male areas” are its home.

3. It is difficult to draw reliable conclusions from fly-rounds on the apparent variations of fly numbers in time, in relation either to season or to movements of game.

The object of this paper is to supply a means to the worker in the field for determining the Simuliidae that he may collect, with reasonable accuracy, until such time as he can have them identified by a systematist. A key to the females is given, and Mr. A. W. J. Pomeroy's figures of male genitalia and pupal filaments are reproduced. In this connection the worker is urged not to depend solely on the key to the females, which could no doubt be greatly improved upon when more materialis available, but to make use of the figures of male genitalia and pupal filaments where possible.

In his classification of the Pyralid subfamily Galleriinae (Novitates Zoologicae, xxiv, 1917), Sir George Hampson, in reviewing the genus Tirathaba, Walker, has created some confusion in dealing with the species Tirathaba rufivena, Walker.

This is the second of a series of papers dealing with zoophagous gall midges of the world. The first, “Gall Midges as Enemies of Aphids,” appeared recently (Bull. Ent. Res., xx, 1929, pp. 433–442), while the third dealing with gall midges as enemies of mites is in course of preparation.