S. Mahunka szerk.: Folia Entomologica Hungarica 27/2. (Budapest, 1974)

In recent years my horizon has been extended although some of my travels have often been geared to seeing art treasures rather than Symphyta. But who can see a new terrain without reflecting on its insect potential even if the timing for season was quite wrong. Arid and sun drenched sites such as Persepolis in Iran or the more luxuriant settings of many temples in Orissa Province in India conjure up special biotopes for insects but perhaps not Symphyta. Also, the rifts in the Western Ghats which are the setting for the magnificent Ellora and Ajunta Cave Temples are more the home of Aculeata. One can also muse over associations of an area with its role in history. In Southern Anatolia when crossing the Taurus Mountains by the Cilician Gates one thinks of ALEXANDER the GREAT and many another conqueror who passed that way. But even with that, one reflects on when will we have students to work out the sawfly linkage of the Taurus Range and its connection with the Upper Euphrates and the high terrain of Eastern Anatolia. Beyond that we come to Mt. Ararat with its backcloth of the Caucasus forming a vital link with East and West. These thoughts are further amplified when traveRing along the coastal flats by the Caspian Sea (noting the Salix bearing Pontania galls) and the relatively unstudied insect fauna of the north face of the Elburz Mountains, with its rich vegetation. Between this north face and the arid south escarpment lies the VaRey of the Assassins with its montane vegetation still waiting for its Symphyta fauna to be studied

. From Iran we can pass to Afghanistan and beyond the Kabul Gorge rich in Salix sp. and look north east to the Hindu Kush and the vast areas beyond. What a pity AURÉL ST EIN did not take an entomologist with him as well as a triangulating surveyor when he carried out his archaelogical expeditions. Again in Nepal when viewing the Himalayas one wonders at the comparatively untapped Symphyta wealth of the vaReys, at least those of the right elevation. Dr. RENE MALAISE has given us the fruits of collecting both in Burma and far away Kamchatka and of course recent workers are expanding our knowledge of Siberian and Mongolian sawflies. Evidence will continue to build up, as for example during my collecting trip to Kilpisjarvi in Finnish Lapland with Dr. VELI VIKBERG, I swept two specimens of Decane- matus longiserra MALAISE, a species not previously recorded from Europe and originally described by Malaise from Kamchatka (the genus is also Nearctic)

. Evidence also underlines the destruction of habitats resulting from industrial and urbanisation pressures

. When in Helsinki I spent rewarding days in the company of Mr. EITEL LINDQVIST and on one occasion we walked round Munksnas the district which was studied by him over many years but is now developing as another somewhat buRt up suburb of the city. National Parks and Nature Reserves do promise some halt to this destruction and the limiting of roads open to motor vehicles is a good and helpful feature of reserves I have visited in Czechoslovakia, Roumania and Poland. Nonetheless, there is much hope for the future, and in restricted areas, even here in Britain, we have gains as well as losses. Dr. R. C. L. PERKINS published his County Records of Devon, Aculeata (1922) and Symphyta (1929) but since then, G. M. SPOONER