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review were being received in the ordinary way; and the collections of insects for- warded from the Colonies were again beginning to come in after a temporary cess- ation. Moreover, there was a shortage of staff, due partly to the fact that some members had been allowed to join the forces, and partly to the prolonged illness of Mr. Campion. At first the absence of Mr. Gotch had seriously retarded the identification work, but arrangements had since been made to carry on his work satisfactorily.

Mr. Marshall asked the Committee to decide on the action to be taken in regard to leave for Dr. Simpson and the further employment of Mr. Campion. It was agreed that Dr. Simpson should, at any rate for the present, be granted leave on exactly the same terms as any other West African official invalided home before the completion of a tour of service; and that Mr. Campion should be paid a reduced salary at the rate of £100 per annum for part time, i.e., five hours a day for five days a week, this arrangement being open to reconsideration at the next General Meeting of the Committee.

4. Copies of communications relating to the proposed Conference of Entomologists in July, 1915, were received.

Mr. Marshall said that he understood unofficially that both the Canadian and the Australian Governments would, in present circumstances, be disinclined to support the proposal. No reply had yet been received from India or New Zealand, but the other Governments approached had welcomed the scheme, although not by any means all could be represented at the Conference.

The Committee decided to recommend to the Secretary of State that, in view of war having broken out, the proposed Conference should be postponed indefinitely. 5. Copies of despatchest from the Governor of Malta and the High Commis- sioner of Cyprus on the subject of contributions from those Governments were received.

6. Copies of correspondencef with the Acting Governor of Uganda as to the future employment of Mr. W. F. Fiske were received.

Annexure to No. 132.

REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE IMPERIAL BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY FOR THE SIX MONTHS ENDING 30TH SEPTEMBER, 1914.

Although of the six months under review the.last two fell within the period of the present European War, the purely entomological side of our work was not much affected, for it was not until the first half of September that any marked diminution of incoming collections was observable. During this period 128 separate consign- ments were received from 58 different correspondents, distributed as follows:- Africa 40, Asia 7, West Indies 5, Australasia 4, and England 2. The total number of specimens received was 48,500, of which 22,600 were blood-suckers. Among these latter the most important item was an exceptionally fine collection of over 11,000 mosquitoes (all bred) and 1,500 Tabanidæ from Dr. H. Macfarlane, Government Bacteriologist in Hong Kong. Mr. F. W. Edwards, of the British Museum, kindly undertook the arduous task of identifying all the mosquitoes, and the whole of the material is now named.

Stegomyia Survey.-In spite of numerous promises of assistance, there is little progress to report in connexion with the Stegomyia survey in the Far East. In addition to the consignment from Hong Kong just mentioned, the only collection of mosquitoes received from this area was one from Kuching, in Sarawak, kindly sent in by Mr. J. C. Moulton; here, as in Hong Kong, Stegomyia scutellaris would appear to be the dominant species, 30 specimens having been received and only one example of Stegomyia fasciata. In an official communication from the New Hebrides we have been informed that one of the French doctors there has made a representative collection of the mosquitoes in one of the islands, which was being forwarded to Paris. Apart from this, no further information has been received from any of the foreign Colonies.

† Nos. 118 and 113.

‡ Nos. 100 and 103.

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Publications. The publication of the Review of Applied Entomology" has naturally been affected by the war, but perhaps to a less extent than might have been expected. The only countries from which we have entirely ceased to receive publica- tions are Belgium, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, while the output from France has been very seriously curtailed. At first there was some interruption in our Russian, Italian, and Scandinavian exchanges, owing to their coming through Germany; but these are now coming in quite regularly, and we hope to have all the missing parts replaced. There has been no serious interference with any of the extra-European journals. There is not likely to be any necessity to reduce the size of our Medical and Veterinary part, but in the case of the Agricultural Series, the issue has been temporarily reduced by one-third, that is to say, from an average of 72 pages to an average of 48. For a time we suspended the distribution of our journals in Europe, but they are now being sent out to all places outside the ring of military operations.

Staff. We have hitherto been fortunate in the continued good health of our staff in Africa, but I regret to have to report that for the past few months Mr. J. J. Simpson has been somewhat seriously indisposed in the Gold Coast, and recently he was invalided home on the recommendation of Dr. Harper, the Principal Medical Officer for the Northern Territories; he arrived in England on the 30th October. It is desirable that the Committee should lay down the rules to be followed in such cases, with reference to the granting of sick leave and the payment of salaries.

Unfortunately my principal clerk has also been away ill for two months, having had a nervous breakdown. He expects to be able to return shortly, but his doctor insists that for some time to come he must work only limited hours. Mr. Campion is at present drawing £165 a year, rising to £180 on the 1st January next

He suggests that he should be allowed to work a 5-hour day for five days a week for £100 a year, which would be equivalent to £180 on the full scale. Such an arrangement could be adopted for the present without inconvenience, if approved by the Committee.

We have also temporarily lost the services of Mr. Gotch, one of our Entomo-. logical Assistants, as he has been called out for military service with the Artists Rifles, which have recently joined the Expeditionary Force. After consulting Mr. H. J. Read, Mr. Gotch was informed that he would receive full salary during his service, less his military allowances.

In the original proposals for the work to be carried out by this Bureau the preparation of a list of the plant pests occurring in each British Colony was sug- gested. It was then contemplated that these lists would, in the first instance, be drawn up by the Entomologist in each Colony. It is now clear that this idea is not feasible, and, therefore, we have had to adopt the alternative suggested by Dr. Gordon Hewitt, namely, that we should ourselves prepare these lists from the published literature, submitting them to the local Entomologists for additions and corrections. Since our last meeting Mr. Ealand and Miss Bostock have started work on these lists in the additional room kindly placed at our disposal by the Trustees of the British Museum. The lists will contain the following informa- tion: Scientific name of the insect; popular name, if any; an indication of its distribution in the Colony (general, local, hill species, &c.); plants attacked; relative importance of the pest.

Since the outbreak of the war this work has been considerably curtailed, for Mr. Ealand has had to devote most of his time to carrying on Mr. Gotch's work in connexion with the insect collections, while Miss Bostock has had to act as typist in the place of Mr. Campion.

Mr. Waterston has made very satisfactory progress in the study of the bene ficial parasites of the family Chalcididæ, for which he was specially engaged, and will shortly begin publishing a series of papers on these insects. interest to note that he is just describing a new species parasitic on Glossina pal- It may be of palis which has recently been discovered by Dr. Carpenter in Uganda.

Dr. W. A. Lamborn left England in September for Nyasaland, where he will carry out investigations for the purpose of devising some practical measures for the eradication of Glossina morsitans by a direct attack upon the fly itself.

Carnegie Students. Of the three Carnegie Students who were in the United States at the end of last March, Mr. C. Mason has been appointed as Government Entomologist in Nyasaland, Mr. R. E. MacGregor has obtained a post at Cambridge under Professor Nuttall, and Mr. A. H. Ritchie will take up the post of Govern- ment Entomologist in Jamaica in January next. At the present time we have

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