
= (oS 
The work of the laboratory at Mexico City is being supplemented 
by field work and studies in an insectary located in Cuernavaca. Ideas 
obtained from field observations may therefore be checked under controlled 
conditions in the laboratory. 
On September 24 Dr. Hugh Darby and Miss Eleanor Kapp reported 
for duty at the Mexican Laboratory. Dr. Darby will have charge of some 
of the specialized phases of the work of the laboratory, and Miss Kapp 
will serve as laboratory assistant. Dr. Darby came into biology as a 
physicist trained at Cambridge, England. He did his undergraduate work 
in biology and received his doctorate at Columbia University, where he 
specialized in insect physiology. Miss Kapp has received both the B. A. 
and M. A. degrees from Columbia University, and has since done special 
graduate work on laboratory methods in biology. 
Dr. Elisabeth Skwarra, a specialist on the relation of insects 
to their environment, reported for duty in Mexico September 18. She 
Came to the United States as an official delegate to the Internation— 
al Congress at Ithaca, and accepted a six months' appointment in Mexico 
to gather data on the influence of environmental conditions on the pupae 
of the Mexican fruit worm. Her appointment covers the period of the 
ripening of the fruit and the pupation of the larvae. The data gathered 
by Dr. Skwarra will be studied in relation to the facts gathered in the 
laboratory and insectary. 
The insectary in Cuernavaca is handled by Mr. McPhail, formerly 
entomologist of the Citrus Experiment Station of Texas. Mr. McPhail 
made most of the discoveries of the Mexican fruit worm in the Rio Grande 
Valley, and his knowledge of citrus insects and conditions is of much 
value in his present work. 
At the Central California Citrus Institute, held at Lindsay, 
Calif., September 21 and 22, 1928, an address was made by E. A. Mc-— 
Gregor on the subject "Citrus Thrips Control." This proved to be the 
best attended Institute in the history of central California, there being 
about 500 present. 
BEE CULTURE INVESTIGATIONS 
James I. Hambleton, in Charge 
The new Southern States Bee Culture Field Laboratory was opened on 
July 16 at Baton Rouge, La., with W. J. Nolan acting temporarily in 
charge. Dr. W. W. Whitcomb, jr., who has received his doctor's degree 
at the University of Wisconsin and was recently engaged in entomolog— 
ical work for that State, accepted a position as Assistant Apicultur-— 
ist with the Bureau of Entomology on July 18; and after spending a 
couple of weeks at the Bee Culture Laboratory at Somerset, Md., left 
