A cottony scale of the genus Pulvinaria has been present in the peach orchards of the Niagara Peninsula of Ontario for many years. It has usually been referred to Pulainaria amygdali Ckll., but Phillips (1955) showed that it is almost undoubtedly P. vitis (L.). Ross and Caesar (1928) reported that it was generally distributed in the area as early as 1926, but only a few orchards were heavily infested. Subsequently only minor infestations were reported until about 1945. From 1946 to 1954 numerous orchards were heavily infested, but since 1954 the scale has been less important although it is widely distributed and sporadic infestations still occur.

Since a technique for mass rearing of the cabbage maggot Hylemya brassicae (Bouché), was described (Read, 1960), inquiries from different countries indicate that many workers encounter difficulties in rearing this insect in captivity. This paper discusses these difficulties and describes methods successfully used by the authors for establishing and maintaining cultures in the greenhouse. Using these methods, 22 successive generations of H. brassicae have been reared at Belleville in less than four years.

In 1957, a program of introducing insect predators for control of the balsam woolly aphid, Chermes (= Adelges) piceae Ratz., was begun in Oregon and Washington. This program was made possible through the generous cooperation of the Canadian Department of Agriculture, which provided many of the predators. Eighteen predator species from Europe, Asia, and Australia were liberated from 1957 through 1960. Four of the species are known to have survived one or more winters and show promise of becoming permanently established.

It has been observed (4) that when the first attacks of Dendroctonus monticolae Hopkins and D. brevicomis LeConte were successfully established on ponderosa pines, the trees were subsequently invaded by a large number of beetles. This abrupt rise in the attack intensity has been termed the “mass attack”. In the absence of successful initial or “pioneer” attacks the mass invasion did not occur. The successful establishment of initial attacks and the occurrence of the subsequent mass attack were found to be correlated with low oleoresin exudation pressure (o.e.p.) of the trees observed.

Neodiprion swainei Middleton is the most serious defoliator of jack pine, Pinus bamksiana Lambert, in Canada. The damage to stands of this species in northern Quebec has been extensive and has resulted in considerable forest-fire hazard. Virus infected sawflies were found in the Lac Gagnon area in Quebec in 1956, and a study of the disease was begun by the Quebec Laboratory in 1957. Laboratory propagation methods were developed and resulted in the production of a quantity of polyhedral concentrate of a virulent strain. Concentrations of polyhedral bodies needed in a spray formulation to infect and kill larvae of various ages were determined in the laboratory and field tests demonstrated the potentialities of this disease as a biological control agent (Smirnoff 1960b, 1961a). These studies served as a basis for the experiment in the dissemination of the disease by aircraft described in this paper.

It has been suggested (Wright, 1958) that attractants or repellents for insects which normally fly to their destination should be tested against insects that are in flight during the tests. Moreover, the conditions of the flight should be as nearly natural as possible. This requires that the observation chamber should be large (to minimize wall effects), the illumination should be controllable, and the air movement and the odorous or other signals should be presented in a natural way. Finally, the movements of the insects should be recorded in three dimensions, and in as much detail as possible.

The arm test for mosquito repellency (King, 1954) is a useful criterion for selecting compounds that are both persistent and repellent and therefore potentially useful in the field. However, if repellency is to be correlated with other molecular properties, a criterion must be found by which intrinsic repellency can be recognized independently of properties like volatility or solubility in sweat (Wright, 1958). Since the prime requirement of a good mosquito repellent is that it shall prevent alightment, some motion pictures were taken of mosquitoes in the act of alighting or failing to alight on variously treated surfaces. The photographs revealed an alteration in the flight posture which was then investigated in detail.

In a recent study of scale insects of the genus Pulvinaria in the peach growing areas of southern Ontario, four species were identified: P. vitis (L.), P. innumerabilis (Rathvon), P. acericola (Walsh and Riky), and P. floccifera (Westwood). Of these, only the first two, P. vitis and P. innumerabilis, were abundant enough to be of economic importance and because they resemble one another, especially when the ovisac is present, they may easily be confused.

The species described below is closely related to Dolichopus dorycerus Loew, 1864, but differs in both sexes in the colour of the lower orbital cilia and, in the male, in many details of the secondary sexual characters.

Dolichopus phyllocerus, new species

Male.–Length 6.3 mm.; wing length 6.2 mm. Face long, narrow, slightly broadened above, pale golden-brown, silvery below. Front metallic copper or coppery-green. Antenna (Fig. 1b) with first two segments yellow, the third black with about basal third yelllow; first segment of normal length; second very short, especially on lateral surface where it is scarcely visible; third short, broad, blunt. Arista black, about 21/2 times as long as rest of antenna, very slender, with a broad, blunt apical lamella. Lateral and lower orbital cilia yellow, upper cilia black.

Species of the genus Ips De Geer are polygamous and the number of females in a gallery map vary from one to five, or occasionally six, to one male. Populations of Ips tridens Mann. going into hibernation in the fall of the year in Alberta, have a sex ratio of approximatclv 3 ♂ ♂: 1 ♀. The assumption has been that the preponderance of fenlales is caused by some mortality factor which is more effective against the males. More recent evidence indicates that the cause is of a genetical nature.

Contrary to a common conception, employment of biological control of weeds is fundamentally the same as the employment of biological control of insect pests. The goal in each case is not eradication but the reduction of pest populations to non-injurious levels. The ecological relationships which apply in the regulation of any organism by natural enemies in the undisturbed natural scene also apply when we attempt to introduce a natural enemy not already present. While it is true that our work has an economic or applied objective, the pursuit of objectives in biological control in general takes us deeply into fundamental considerations – fundamentals which constitute the broad science of ecology.

The eggs of the pale western cutworm. Agrotis orthogonia Morr., are laid in the soil between about August 15 and September 15, the peak of oviposition usually occurring hetween August 25 and September 5. The eggs commence development as soon as they are laid and in most years the embryos are fully developed by winter (Jacobson and Blakeley, 1958). Hatching occurs in the spring, usually soon after all snow has melted and the soil has thawed.

In 1957, some officers of the Forest Insect Survey of Canada discovered a species of Nepticula mining the leaves of white birch (Betula papyrifera Marsh.) and yellow birch (Betula lutea Michx. f.) in Ontario. At that time the species was considered to be undescribed, but to confirm this it was necessary to study the life-history. This has been done by Mr. O. H. Lindquist, Forest Insect Laboratory, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and the results of his studies are being presented in a companion paper. His investigations confirmed that the species had not been named and the following description is presented.

A new leaf-mining nepticulid was discovered in Ontario in 1957 during a study of leaf-mining sawflies on birch in the province (Lindquist, 1959). Severe browning of white birch foliage in the Bruce Peninsula in 1958 precipitated an investigation on the identity, biology, and distribution of the species. Adults obtained in the spring of 1959 were tentatively identified as Nepticula sp. by T. N. Freeman, Entomology Research Institute, Ottawa. An introductory note on the life history of the species was published in 1960 (Lindquist, 1960) and distribution data have been recorded since 1958 in the Annual Report of the Forest Insect and Disease Survey of Canada. Freeman (1962) described the adult stage and assigned the name Nepticula lindquisti to this species.

The importance of the mountain pine beetle to the pine forests of North America has been pointed out by several writers (Hopkins, 1909; Swaine, 1918; Evenden et al., 1943; Hopping and Mathers, 1945). Its range covers parts of southern British Columbia and Alberta, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, California, Utah, and Nevada. The size of populations and the damage vary from year to year. A study of the biology of the mountain pine beetle was made by the writer from 1955 to 1960 in several small outbreak areas near Invermere, British Columbia. (50°30′ N. lat., 116°00′ W. long., 2740 feet above sea level). The host tree in these areas was lodgepole pine, Pinus contorta Douglas var. latifolia Engelmann. The results of the study will be presented in three parts. Part I is presented herein and describes the life cycle, brood development, and flight periods. Part II is a discussion of the behaviour of the adult as affected by physical factors operating under the bark. Part III describes the interaction of the insect and its host, with special reference to mortality and brood survival.

Brian (1954) discussed the evidence in the literature concerning whether the correlation between the length of the proboscis of a bumble bee and the length of the corolla tube of the flower it visits for nectar results from learned or innate behaviour. She hesitated to accept the views of Kugler (1943), who supported the ‘learned’ hypothesis and considered that the individual bumble bee is instinctively attracted to a flower by its colour, scent, etc., but must learn which flowers are suited to its bodily build, because he had done no work on bees raised in isolation and therefore known to be without foraging experience. The work of Cumber (1949), which reported that there were differences in proboscis lengths between individuals of a species that visited different flowers and which therefore also supported the learned hypothesis, was suspect because he gave no data on corolla lengths. Hobbs et al. (1961), who recorded the food-preferences of certain of the workers, queens, and males of honey, bumble, and leaf-cutter bees on an isolated experimental field containing plots of alfalfa, red clover, alsike clover, and sweetclover, concluded that the preference exhibited by a bee was linked with the ease with which it could gather nectar from a flower. They found, as did Cumber, that differences in prolboscis-lengths between individuals of a species resulted in preferences for flowers of different corolla-tube lengths, e.g., the queens of Bombus hunti Greene (mean length of proboscis 8.7 mm.) greatly preferred red clover, whereas the workers (m.l.p. 6.3 mm.) preferred sweetclover.

Mites, insects, and storage fungi usually infest grain that has been stored for several years. Since mites and most storage fungi are usually considered of secondary importance to insects, few comprehensive studies have been made on their occurrence in grain stored in the Prairie Provinces. Although difficult to see because of their microscopic size, the presence of mites and fungi in stored grain often leads to a decrease in grain quality. Thus, information on their occurrence in stored grain together with data on the damage attributed to them would be useful in assessing their economic significance.