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Meeting as he understood it, had been not that he himself, but that Dr. Neave should represent the Bureau on this Committee. It was agreed that the Minutes should be amended accordingly.

(d) (Paragraph 9 of Minutes).—Mr. Parkinson explained that the question of the British representation on the Committee set up by the International Conference on Phytopathology and Economic Entomology had formed the subject of official correspondence between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Colonial Office. The views of all the Dominion Governments on the subject had been obtained, and there was general agreement that the Committee should be regarded not as an official body, but as an unofficial scientific body; hence the British representatives would not be appointed by His Majesty's Government. The Ministry of Agriculture would therefore invite scientific Associations which were interested in Phyto- pathology and Entomology to nominate the two British representatives. A suggestion made by the High Commissioner for New Zealand that similar Associations in the Dominions might be consulted in regard to at least one of the nominations had been communicated to the Ministry of Agriculture. In the circumstances, there was no further action for the Managing Committee of the Bureau to take in the matter.

(e) The Chairman remarked that the cost of illustrations for the Bulletin of Entomological Research, Vol. XIII, as shown in the Director's Report, had been somewhat high. The Director explained that the cost was quite exceptional, the unusual increase being due to the maps and illustrations for two important papers on tsetse flies.

The Minutes of the Thirty-Ninth General Meeting were then approved. 3. The Committee then considered the Report of the Director for the year ended 31st of March, 1924.*

(a) The Director explained that action was being taken with a view to obtaining a larger number of advertisements for the Review of Applied Entomology.

(b) On the proposal of Professor Poulton (seconded by Sir David Prain), it was agreed that the expenditure of approximately £100 on the re-organization of the offices at 41, Queen's Gate, should be approved.

(c) The Chairman enquired whether it had been brought to the notice of correspondents in the Dominions that the pamphlets in the Library of the Bureau were available for borrowing. The Director explained that the stock was not yet large enough to make it advisable to announce the fact generally.

(d) It was agreed at the suggestion of Sir Sidney Harmer that the question of increasing the insurance on the books in the Library should be taken up by the Director.

(e) Dr. Marshall referred to the position of Mr. Altson who, as a result of the recommendation in paragraph 5 (4) of the Minutes of the last Meeting, had been appointed to the Staff of the Bureau with salary on the scale £250-£20-£290-£25- £450. Mr. Altson had submitted that before this arrangement came into effect he had already been engaged on work for the Bureau for a period of eighteen months, and had asked that he might be given increments accordingly in his scale of salary. After some discussion the Committee agreed that Mr. Altson should enter the scale at £270 a year, with the appropriate cost of living bonus, as from the 1st of April, 1924.

(f) Dr. Marshall mentioned in connexion with the work of Dr. Johnson and Dr. Lloyd in Nigeria that excellent results had been obtained with the drug Bayer 205 in dealing with trypanosomiasis.

(g) On the proposal of Sir David Prain, the Committee approved of the arrangement mentioned in the Report for the payment of £200 quarterly in advance to the Stationery Office on account of printing and goods supplied to the Bureau. 4. Dr Neave then gave a brief account of his visit to the Agricultural Conference in Jamaica in January, 1924. In accordance with the suggestion of Sir Arthur Shipley, he had, in addition to visiting Jamaica, also attended the laying of the foundation stone of the West Indian Agricultural College, Trinidad. In making arrangements for his passages, etc., he had received very valuable assistance from Mr. Aspinall, the Secretary of the West India Committee.

During a call at Barbados he had seen Mr. Bovell, the Director of Agriculture, and had arranged with him for the supply of certain Barbados publications which

* Annexure.

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would fill gaps in the Records of the Bureau. He had spent a fortnight in Trinidad, where Mr. Úrich had kindly made arrangements for him to see the work in progress there. He had also arranged for some exhibits in connexion with injurious insects to be sent home for the Empire Exhibition.

At the Conference in Jamaica he had read a paper on the work of the Bureau. He had been able to meet the Colonial Secretaries of Trinidad and Jamaica, and had been given to understand that the Bureau might look for continued support from the Governments of those Colonies.

5. The Committee considered the Memorandum* by the Glossina Sub- Committee on the tsetse fly investigations now being oarried on in Zululand. The Chairman moved that, in accordance with the recommendation of the Sub-Committee, the Committee should recommend to the Secretary of State that the Memorandum should be forwarded to the Governor-General of the Union of South Africa with a covering despatch urging the importance of work of this nature, mentioning the steps taken in other British African territories to pursue tsetse fly investigation, and also pointing out the desirability of the Sub-Committee being kept informed any such investigations undertaken in the Union, The Committee agreed that this should be done.

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B. It was agreed that a Sub-Committee should be constituted, composed of the members of the Committee residing in or near London, to make preliminary arrangements in connexion with the Second Imperial Entomological Conference to be held in June, 1925, and that this Sub-Committee should have power to add to its number other members of the Committee.

7. Dr. Marshall stated that he had received an application from Mr. "Altson for temporary assistance in his work at Rothamsted during the summer months. Since then, on the day before the Meeting, he had learned that Mr. Áltson had had a nervous breakdown and had been obliged to cease work for a time. This parasite work required continuous daily attention, so that Mr. Altson had been unable to get away for a holiday since he started it, and it was desirable that arrangements should be made for him to receive assistance during the summer when the pressure was greatest. He understood that it would be possible to train a boy or girl locally, at a cost of about 15 shillings a week, to do the work required.

The Committee agreed that the Director should be empowered to arrange for temporary assistance to Mr. Altson during the summer.

8. Dr. Marshall explained that the Government of the Tanganyika Territory had recently been anxious to purchase a handbook dealing with the more important pests of crops in Tropical Africa, but that no such publication was available. He proposed that the Bureau should take up the publication of such a work. Mr. F. Laing, the Economic Entomologist at the Natural History Museum, was willing to undertake the preparation of such a handbook in his spare time, and proofs would be sent before publication to the various Government Entomologists in Tropical Africa for their comments. He estimated that the cost would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of £250, which could be made available from the Tropical African Fund. Sir H. Read observed that such a work should find a considerable sale.

It was proposed by Professor Poulton and seconded by Sir Sidney Harmer that the Director's proposal should be approved, and that the steps to be taken to carry it out should be left in his hands for the present. The Committee agreed.

9. Mr. Parkinson explained that whilst Rhodesia was under the adminis tration of the British South Africa Company there had been some misunderstanding as to the annual contribution of Southern Rhodesia, which had been reduced from £300 to £200. The matter was taken up by the Secretary of State with the new Government of Southern Rhodesia, which had now agreed to insert provision for a contribution of £300 in their Estimates for the years 1924-5 and 1925-6.

He also mentioned that the Government of Iraq had agreed to pay the Bureau the sum of Rs. 1,000 a year in return for the identification work which is done on their behalf by the Bureau.

[22249]

Annexure to No. 61.

REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE IMPERIAL BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st March, 1924.

THE work of the Bureau in connexion with the identification of insects has been well maintained during the past year, for although the actual number of

* No. 59.

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specimens received is less than during the two preceding years, yet the number of correspondents who have sent us material and the specific identifications sent out are both higher than for any previous year. In the following details the corresponding figures for the preceding year are given in brackets for comparison.

The collections received totalled 323 (312), and these were sent in by 127 (121) different correspondents, distributed as follows:-Africa, 45; Asia, 36; Europe, 17; Australasia, 16; Tropical America, 13. The collections contained 45,800 (56,000) specimens, of which 3,300 (11,600) were blood-suckers. During the year 233 (196) lists of identifications were issued, comprising 7,642 (6,268) specific names.

Of named blood-sucking insects or species of agricultural importance 7,600 (2,400) specimens were presented to the following institutions:-Aberdeen University; Department of Agriculture, Mauritius; Dominion Entomological Branch, Ottawa, Canada; Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine; London School of Tropical Medicine; Royal Army Medical Corps South Tidworth, Hants; Tokio University; University College of South Wales; and Victoria University, Man- chester. The insects presented to the British Museum numbered 15,800 (16,150), of which 128 (181) were types of species new to science, and among the remainder were 595 (453) named species not previously represented in the Museum collection.

Review of Applied Entomology.—The number of abstracts published was almost the same as in the preceding year, namely, 2,439 (2,471), occupying 804 (864) pages. The usual small annual increase in the number of subscribers has been main- tained, and the sales of Series A, which have been slowly gaining for several years on those of Series B, have now exceeded them. The numbers of volumes sold were, Series A, 299 (288) and Series B, 297 (291). There has been a slight proportionate increase in the total net sales, which amount to £341 48. 4d. (£333 18s. Id.). The receipts for advertisements were £74 78. 6d., as compared with £73 118. Od. for the previous year.

Sundry Publications.--Sixteen papers have been published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, dealing mainly with non-economic insects sent in to the Bureau for identification:-Two by Mr. G. E. Bryant (Phytophagous Beetles), one by Professor T. D. A. Cockerell (Bees), three by Mr. J. R. Malloch (Anthomyiid Flies), six by Mr. B. P. Uvarov (Grasshoppers), and four by the Director (Weevils). The agreed contribution towards the cost of printing and illustrating these papers -paid to Messrs. Taylor & Francis, amounted to £77 Ï8s. Od.

The book on tsetse-flies, prepared by Major E. E. Austen and Mr. E. Hegh, has continued to sell fairly satisfactorily, yielding a net sum of £22 12s. 9d. during the year. The present position with regard to this publication is that the total cost of production was £285 88. 4d., and the net sales to the end of last financial year amounted to £118 38. 9d. We have about 500 copies still in stock.

Library. The steady growth of our library has made it necessary to rearrange the available accommodation at 41, Queen's Gate. Hitherto we had used only one room on the topmost of our three floors, but now we have to occupy the whole of this floor. This change involves the moving to another floor of nearly all the books and the purchase of some additional furniture and linoleum, as well as an alteration in the arrangement of the electric lighting. It is estimated that the total cost of this will amount to about £100. The library will now occupy the whole of the second floor, which will afford plenty of room for expansion, and will provide improved reading- room accommodation for visitors.

Accessions to the library include 454 bound volumes and over 1,500 pamphlets, bringing the totals up to 3,674 and over 6,500 respectively. Some 870 (850) serial publications are now received regularly, the great majority of these being in exchange for the publications of the Bureau.

The typewritten lists of the serials and of the monographs have been revised and brought up to date during the year, and a considerable amount of time has been devoted to the general catalogue of serials, especially in connexion with Russian periodicals. Steady progress has also been made with the card index, under authors' names, of the entomological papers contained in the serial journals, about half the volumes in the library having been dealt with in this way.

Requests for the loan of books and pamphlets have not been very numerous in the past, but they appear to be steadily increasing; the loans during the year amounted to 317, as compared with 227 in the previous year. The following insti- tutions, among others, made use of the library in this way:-The Forestry Commis- sion, the Tropical Diseases Bureau, the Natural History Museum, the Wellcome

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Bureau of Scientific Research, and the Agricultural Colleges of Wye and Cirencester.

Export of Parasites. In accordance with the decision of the Committee at their last meeting, arrangements have been made to place Mr. G. M. Altson, who has done all our parasite work at Rothamsted, on the permanent staff of the Bureau. After consultation with the Chairman of the Finance Sub-Committee, Sir Sidney Harmer, it was decided that his salary should be that of a Junior Assistant, the grade being £250-£20-£290-25-£450 substantive salary, starting at £250, with £119 cost of living bonus from the 1st April, 1924.

The export of parasites of the Pear Sawfly to New Zealand has unfortunately not proved very successful, because they arrived there too late for the sawflies, and had to be carried over the winter in cool storage, with the result that only two or three specimens emerged in the spring.

In the case of the earwigs we have been much more successful, in spite of the great technical difficulties in breeding the Tachinid flies in captivity. Last autumn some 1,400 living earwigs were shipped to New Zealand, a large proportion of which were parasitised by a fly of the genus Rhacodineura. From these, 85 flies were bred out in Nelson, and they have now been carried through to the third generation. Some of the flies have been released, and 100 pupae have been retained in the laboratory to carry the species over the winter. The other fly, Digonochata, did not prove very satisfactory at first, owing to the difficulty in getting them to pair in captivity. We sent out another 300 pupa in cool storage last November, and Dr. Tillyard reports that they have done better with these and have secured from them sufficient progeny to give a fair stock of pupa to carry over the winter. There seems, therefore, to be a very favourable prospect for the permanent establishment of these two parasites.

The tsetse fly parasite, Syntomosphyrum, has proved enormously prolific at Rothamsted, and thousands have had to be killed because they could not be used. Over 5,800 blowfly pupe have been submitted to parasitism and shipped out to Nigeria during the past six months, and the number has merely been limited by the fact that we have had only one man to deal with them. With ordinary' luck these pupe might produce anything from 20,000 to 50,000 parasites. In the first package all the insects were killed owing to improper treatment in the train from Lagos up- country. Since then Dr. Lloyd has acknowledged the receipt of two parcels by post and two in cool storage. At the time he wrote a few Chalcids had emerged from the former lots, but none from the cooled packages. For the present no more of these insects are being bred at Rothamsted.

A report by Mr. Altson on the work done at Rothamsted will be found in Appendix I.

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Tsetse Investigations. Mr. R. H. Harris, Tsetse Investigator in Zululand, has recently been in England on leave, and representations were made to the Union Government (through Mr. Lounsbury) as to the desirability of giving him the tunity of taking a short course at the London School of Tropical Medicine. Extra leave was promptly granted to Mr. Harris for this purpose, but as there seemed to be some difficulty with regard to the payment of the requisite fees, the Glossina Sub-Committee agreed to make a grant not exceeding £20 for this purpose. Actually, owing to the generous arrangements made by the London School, the fees for the training of both Mr. Harris and his wife did not amount to more than £6.

For the information of the Glossina Sub-Committee Mr. Harris was asked to submit a statement* as to the line of work that he thought it desirable to undertake on his return to Zululand. This statement was considered by the Sub-Committee, and they have made a recommendation with regard to it which will be dealt with elsewhere.

It will be remembered that last year a grant of £70 was made to Mr. C. F. M. Swynnerton to enable him to visit certain other Tsetse Investigators in South-East Africa. As a result of this he stayed some time with Mr. Harris in Zululand, and also examined some of the northern fly-belts in Southern Rhodesia in company with Mr. R. W. Jack; but he was unable to find time to visit Dr. Lamborn. Owing to heavy pressure of work on his return to Tanganyika, followed by serious illness, he has not yet been able to send.in an official report on his tour.

Mr. Swynnerton has already made a start with his arrangements for an organized attack on isolated blocks of tsetse-infested bush at Shinyanga,

* Annexure to No. 59.