Serious defoliation of spruce by a sawfly was discovered in the interior of the Gaspe peninsula, P.Q., in the autumn of 1930. The following year an aeroplane survey indicated that some 2,000 square miles of forest was heavily attacked. The species had not previously been recorded from America and was determined as Dipirion polytomum Hartig, which has been known for over 1OO years in parts of Europe but has caused little or no damage there.

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).

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.

The known ants of the state of Idaho comprise about 73 named species, subspecies and varieties. They occupy a wide variety of habitats ranging from dunes of pure sand, barren and wind-blown, to forests of yellow pine, fir and spruce, with an abundance of shade and moistuce. Because of the large amount of vegetation in the montane forests and subalpine pine meadows a large percentage of the ant fauna lives there, if not exclusively at least in very great numbers. It is, however, rather surprising to observe the large number of species which nest on the dry plains of sagebrush, bromegras and rabbitbrush, and on the scattered alkaline flats of greasewood in the southern part of the state.

The types of the spcies described below are in the author's collection except for the Acanthosmioides, which are in Prof. T. D. A. Cockerell's collection.

Osmia (Acanthosmioides) uncinata n. sp.

Male: Length 10 mm.; head and thorax green, the cheeks and pleura bluer, the abdomen blue, slightly greener posteriorly, the posterior margins of the tergites concolorous; flagellum crenulate, the under side brownish red; mandibles black, their bases greenish; legs black except for the green femora and rufescent claw joints of tarsi; hind tibiae perhaps faintly greenish basally; tegulae black, green anteriorly; hind basitarsus widest apically, tapering basally; head and thorax closely punctate, but the vertex and scutum not blackish; wings hardly dusky, the basal vein meeting transverse median, the second abscissa of cubital vein nearly twice as long as fourth; scutellum with a longitudinal median line, which is not distinctly polished; pubescence of head and thorax white, that of clypeus dense and erect as in other species of this subgenus; pubescence of abdomen white, the third tergite with a few black hairs posteriorly on dorsum, tergites four to six with more abundant black hairs intermixed among the pale; venter of abdoinen with some dark hairs among the pale; apex of abdomen normal for the subgenus, the teeth of seventh tergite rounded; process of second sternite not compressed apically, but rather narrowly rounded when seen from below, the base (in same view) widened; seen from the side, the apex of the process is minutely hooked on ventral side; ventral side of process, especially basally, somewhat excavated, but not grooved.

In a recent number of the European publication Parnassiana (Vol. 111, p. 55) I was astonished to note that under the title “A Critical Revision of the Genus Parnassius based on Material in the Eisner Collection,” Messrs. Bryk and Eisner had described a race of P. smintheus with the subspecific name manitobaensis from “End Mountains, Manitoba.”

As it appeared extremely problematic that Parnassius would turn up in Manitoba without rumours of the find reaching- Ottawa, I got in touch with several collectors in the province. From one, Mr. J. F. May of Norgate, Man. I received a reply that the specimens in question had been supplied by him but that they had been distinctly labelled “End Mountain, Alta.,” a locality I believe to be situated in the Banff region. Under these circumstances the name manitobaensis will sink into the synonymy of the typical race smintheus, as found in the Canadian Rockies.

On Tuesday morning, July 17, 1933 I noticed a Trypoxylon politiforme Roh. starting to build its nest against the side of a vertical cement pillar in our basement, by Friday night, July 20, 1933 the first row of cells was completed.

This wasp builds a mud cell about one inch long and somewhat larger in diameter than a lead pencil. It provisions this cell with paralyzed spiders, then it closes the cell leaving about one-fourth inch of the cell projecting. It then extends the cell for another inch, and fills the second compartment or cell with paralyzed spiders, closing this second cell off with another mud partition. The first row of cells were slightly more than seven inches long, and contained seven cells. The second row of cells was started on Saturday morning, July 21, these being built along the side of the first row. I noticed two wasps bringing in mud. I dropped some white Duco paint upon one of the wasps, which later I found to be a male.

Head, palpi and thorax clothed with rough olive-ochreous hair, the palpi with a considerable admixture of black hairs apically. Pectus and legs with similarly colored, rough vestiture. Abdomen dorsally with sparse ochreous hairs over a black ground and with the posterior margins of segments ringed narrowly with ochreous scales ; laterally and ventrally with strong vestiture of rather bright yellow hair. Primaries deep pink with a broad, subterminal curved band of oliveochreous from below apex of wing to near base of wing above vein I, narrowing considerably at this point; a streak of the same color in the cell.