~25— 
Miss Nikolskaia recently published a short paper entitled The Clover 
Seed Chalcid (Bruchophagus gibbus Boh.) in Alfalfa Sceds in USSR (Plant 
Protection, Leningrad, fasc. 1, 1932, pp. 107-111), in which she has 
recorded the above-mentioned identifications among others, and has in- 
dicated that Bruchophagus funebris (How.) is to be replaced by B: 
gsibbus:. (Boh.) as-the name for the clover seed chalcid. While it is im 
possible to confirm this conclusion completely without access to Bohe- 
man's type of B. gibbus, it nevertheless appears altogether probable 
that the synonymy is correct. Specimens in the National Museum collec— 
tion identified by Gustav Mayr as Boheman's species apparently are iden— 
rical with B..funebris, 
H. G. Barber has recently received for determination several speci- 
meng of a pretty little mirid, Halticotoma valida’ Townsend, found feed- 
ing on yucca in Washington and the neighboring towns of Alexandria and 
Rosslyn, Va. From the evidence at hand this insect seems to have reach— 
ed northern Virginia and the District of Columbia only recently. It 
was originally very briefly described from New Mexico in 1892 by C. H. 
Tyler Townsend and later (1913) redescribed by 0. M. Reuter from Ari- 
zone and Texas. However, it must have been widely distributed through 
the Southern States previous to the time of Townsend's account, as 
there are a number of specimens in the National Museum collection label— 
ed "Eustis, Florida, May 22, 1925 (on yucca)." H. H. Knight in 1912 
noted its occurrence on yucca from Colorado, Mississippi, Tennessee, 
and South Carolina, Other States represented’ in the National Museum 
collection are Kentucky and Georgia. This mirid is, therefore, well 
established throughout the South. Its appearance in this locality ap— 
pears to present’ another case, similar to that of Corizus sidae Fab., — 
in which a normally southern species gradually works farther and farther 
north, aaa 

PHYSIOLOGY AID TOXICOLOGY OF INSECTS 
M. C. Swingle and J. F. Cooper, Takoma Park, M3i., are rearing the 
‘following five species of insects at Sanford, Fla., for tests of fixed 
nicotine preparations; The bean leaf roller, the imported cabbage 
worm, the celary leaf tier, the southern armyworm, and the black cut— 
worm. Onky a few tests have so far been mace. It was surprising to 
find that nicotine silicotungstate, a very insoluble corpound employed 
for the quantitative determination of nicotine, was more toxic thana 
sample of nicotinc-b2 ‘tonite containing 10 percert nicotine. The cute 
worms are much more resistant to nicotine than are the other species. 
N. E. McIndoo, Takoma Park, in cooperation with R. C. Roark, of 
the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, is working on a bibliography of to-— 
bacco products as insecticides. 
