The New World species of the staphylinid subfamily Oxyporinae are revised. Only one genus, Oxyporus Fab., with two subgenera, is included in the subfamily. The genus Pseudoxyporus, described by Nakane and Sawada (1956), has been reduced to subgeneric rank. Sixteen species are included in the revision. Two new species, O. bierigi from Costa Rica and Panama, and O. balli from Mexico are described; two names are placed in synonymy [O. fasciatus Melsh. (= O. vittatus Grav.) and O. fenyesi Bernhauer (= O. mexicanus Fauvel)]; and two names are reduced to subspecific level [O. bicolor Fauvel (= O. vittatus bicolor) and O. austrinus Horn (= O. femoralis austrinus)]. All of the New World species and subspecies have been redescribed and illustrated, and a key has been included for the separation of all the taxa.

The life histories of Pseudohylesinus tsugae Swaine and P. grandis Swaine were investigated in young coastal stands of western hemlock. Both P. tsugae and P. grandis had one generation a year with two broods and four larval instars. P. grandis usually overwintered as a teneral adult and P. tsugae as a fourth instar larva. Within thinned stands P. tsugae preferred fresh stumps for breeding material, whereas P. grandis preferred fresh slash. The adult females of both species fed in the inner-bark region of standing, live host trees before initiating egg galleries in slash or stumps.

Morphological and histological details of the sex pheromone glands of male Vitula edmandsae (Packard) are reported. Several hypotheses concerning the functions of these glands are discussed.

Sitka spruce produces twice as many needles per linear inch of twig as western hemlock. Defoliation by the black-headed budworm, Acleris variana (Fern.), is more severe on hemlock than spruce because of differences in the phenological development of the hosts and in the feeding behavior of first- and second-instar larvae on each of the hosts.

Chrysobothris orono Frost, a buprestid which attacks living red pine (Pinus resinosa Ait.) and jack pine (P. banksiana Lamb.), has a 2-year life cycle and two separate broods in Michigan. Adults emerge from May to July. The eggs are laid singly, usually on the southwest side of a tree; the fifth and sixth whorls from the top are the preferred oviposition sites. Larval eclosion usually occurs in early June. Each larva excavates a cell in the bark and causes the flowing pitch to coagulate into a large pitch mass. The first three instars feed in the bark and the last two instars feed in the xylem. Advanced larvae may reach the fourth instar by fall of the first year; overwintering occurs in the third and fourth instars. The fifth instar, which appears in the spring of the second year, bores a short L-shaped gallery in the xylem and plugs it with frass and wood chips to form a pupal cell. It pupates in the spring of the third year. Adults emerge by chewing through the plug and pitch mass. The bark cell and xylem gallery seldom injure the tree directly, but they remain as defects in the bole after the wounds have healed. Because damage is slight and the insect population low, C. orono is not likely to become an important forest pest.

The following new pyraustine taxa are described: Callibotys n. gen., type-species Rhectothyris hyalodiscalis Warren, from Assam and Burma, including also Crocidophora carapina Strand, from Taiwan, considered a distinct species from Callibotys hyalodiscalis, and Callibotys wilemani n. sp., from Honshu, Japan; Eumorphobotys n. gen., type-species Calamochrous eumorphalis Caradja, from China, and also including Calamochrous obscuralis Caradja, from China; Sinibotys n. gen., type-species Crocidophora hoenei Caradja, from China.

During 1965–67, the seasonal history and habits of two oak bark beetles, Pseudopityophthorus minutissimus (Zimm.) and P. pruinosus (Eichhoff), were studied in 47 oaks, Quercus spp., in southern Ohio.All study trees were attacked and the male beetles made initial entry into the trees. The attack period per tree was usually 1–3 days, and the density of attack varied from 5 to 120 galleries 1 ft2 of surface area. Oviposition began as soon as egg gallery construction began, and the incubation period was about 5 days in the summer. The rate of egg gallery construction was about 0.2 in./day in mid-summer. The average length of the egg galleries was 1.9 cm and the average number of eggs per gallery was 41.5. Over 50% of the parent adults of both species re-emerged after egg gallery construction and oviposition. The re-emerging parent adults can attack, lay eggs, and re-emerge three times. The larval stage can last 25–247 days, the pupal stage 15–139 days, and the adult stage 7–198 days. The beetles can overwinter in every stage but the pupal stage. Spring emergence occurred 29 April in 1966 and 14 April in 1967, and in southern Ohio, two generations and a partial one occur each year.Trap trees were attacked 7–205 days and brood emergence lasted 58–329 days. The beetles can attack one tree three times.

Experiments were carried out to determine the effect of age on the functional response of the pentatomid predator Podisus maculiventris (Say), reared in a simple glass jar universe on different prey sizes of Galleria mellonella (L.). Holling’s (1959) ’disc’ equation accurately described the predator’s response at all prey sizes up to 50 days of life. For nymphs, the calculated ’rate of discovery’, a, increased as the predator age increased, but the time of handling prey, b, decreased; for both adult males and females, these calculated values increased gradually up to the 50th day. The relationship between predator age and numbers of prey killed, and predator age and amount of prey body contents consumed (food consumption), was linear at all prey sizes, but mainly negatively so. Prey size was an important component of the predation process for all stages of the predator.It is concluded that ’hunger’ is an important parameter of the attack model since the degree of predator satiation bears directly on b-type activities which in turn affects a-type activities. These findings indicate that under field conditions P. maculiventris will kill more small-sized lepidopterous prey larvae than large-sized ones, and that, because of the greater prey defense of the latter, their survival from predator attacks will increase. These actions may be of considerable importance in the survival of lepidopterous host species.

Final instar larvae of fall webworms, Hyphantria cunea (Drury), were labelled to equilibrium levels on persimmon leaves containing 45Ca. Loss rates of 45Ca from the larvae were followed in the laboratory after either feeding larvae on unlabelled leaves, or starving other larvae.Initial loss-rate characteristics were different in the two feeding treatments, but biological half-lives were not significantly changed. Feeding shifts the time at which the lower loss-rate comes into effect.

A new genus, Sharliphora, with type-species Tenthredo ambiguus Fallén is described. Key to genera of Nematini related to Sharliphora is presented.