This is one of a series of papers on the desert life of the Big Bend Region of Trans-Pecos, Texas. The area concerned is mainly in Presidio and Jeff Davis Counties; the former one of the largest counties in the United States. Situated about twenty miles north of Presidio in Presidio County is the mining town of Shafter which lies in the heart of the Chinati Mountains.

A quick, easy method of transferring large numbers of living grasshoppers from collection cages to field cages was developed from the suction collector idea by the writer during 1940. The vacuum created in the intake manifold of a car engine was used to operate an aspirator such as is in general use for picking up living insects.

The following descriptions of five new genera and species of Tachinidae are based upon material received from several sources as indicated below. Most of the species have been standing in my collection for a number of years pending the accumulation of longer series. My thanks are due A. R. Brooks for the loan of some additional material recently discovered in the extensive tachinid collections in the Canadian Department of Agriculture. The type or paratype specimens, of the two species represented by this material, are returned for deposit in the Canadian Collection, as detailed under the descriptions.

Since the publication of my revision of the genus Exenterus (U. S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Pub. No. 354, 1940) several pertinent items of interest have come to my attention.

From the Canadian Department of Agriculture, through G. Stuart Walley, I have received specimens of two undescribe species, one in considerable nnmbers, the other represented by only a single specimen.

In some species of insects there is only a single mating, but the egg-laying period may extend over a considerable length of time. Under such circumstances there must be some provision in the female for the storage and preservation of the supply of seminal fluid received during coitus, so that spermatozoa will be available as eggs mature. This is generally effected by an organ known as the spermatheca or receptaculum seminis, a flask-like structure which may open by means of a duct directly into the vagina, but more frequently empties into a bursa copulatrix, which in turn opens into the vagina.

During the course of field work with small mammals in central New York, the writer made a collection of fleas. Those records which give additional information on the host distribution of these parasites, are listed below. Some significant records from the Cornell University collection are also cited. This short list will serve to supplement the checklist of fleas for New York State of Stewart (1933, Jour. N. Y. Ent. Soc., 41:253-262). The availability of the Cornell collection was made through the kindness of Dr. Robert Matheson, and to him I tender my thanks.