On August 22, 1933, while the members of the Montreal staff were inspecting a nursery in Montreal, P. Q., a small number of sawfly larvae was observed feeding on the mugho pine trees. These were submitted to Ottawa and were identified as the larvae of Diprion simile Htg. This was the second record of the appearance of this species in Canada; the first being a record from Oakville, Ont., in 1931. This insect had previously been studied in the Northeastern United States by Britton and Zappe (1917) and Middleton (1923).

Walsingham described the species from 1 male, 2 females, from Shasta Co., Calif. Heinrich, in his revision, confines the distribution to the eastern section of the continent and in his key to the species (p. 132) characterizes it as having “basal patch heavily shaded with black, the blackish scaling extending diagonally to middle of costa.” Neither the original description nor the figure bears out this characterization; the figure, while somewhat crude, notable in the too great prominence given the outer patches as compared with the basal one, certainly shows no connecting band between the basal patch and the midcostal one; further the description distinctly calls for a dark spot at end of cell, in fact the name is based on this feature.

During the past few years several workers in culicid biology have made studies of the rest period that accompanies the hibernation of certain temperate and subtropical treehole mosquitoes. Incidental to these studies several attempts have been made to bring on prematurely the phase of active development by artificial agents. Roubaud (2, p. 1126) has shown that young, first stage, Aedes geniculatus larvae can be Induced to hatch from the egg and to begin active development by means of certain enzymatic ferments. As far as the writer knows, no one has yet reported any successful attempts to activate resting larvae in the more advanced stages.

For the purpose of determining whether foxtail midges occurred in Canada and if so their range, a survey of places where meadow foxtail grass, Alope curus pratensis L. was known to be grown was made in the spring of 1934. This survey followed a request for information upon the point by Dr. L. E. Kirk, Dominion Agrostologist, on behalf of Dr. R. O. Whyte, Chief Officer of the Imperial Bureau of Plant Genetics; Herbage Plants, Aberystwyth, Great Britain. Dr. Whyte is interested in discovering areas free from foxtail midges which might bme used for the production of meadow foxtail seed. The location of stands of the grass were secured through Dr. Kirk and co-operation in making observations was sought and readily obtained from various people living in the vicinity of these stands in Canada.

Late in 1934, Arthur Gibson, the Dominion Entomologist, received from Miss A. M. Heydweiller, of the Laboratory of Ornithology, Cornell University, a number of collections of external parasites taken from twenty species of birds at Churchhill, Man., during the summer of that year. These were passed to me by Mr. Gibson, and were found to consist of 27 collections of biting lice(Mallophaga), two of fleas (Siphonaptera) and two of mites (Acarina)

Specimens of three species of Hemiptera have recently come to the attention of the writer. Since two of these represent new family records for the Canadian fauna and the third is a genus hitherto unreported from North America it seems advisable to place their occurrence on record. The specimens are deposited in the Canadian National Collection.