IntroductionThe Alberta Hail Project (1980-1986) was a research/operational hail suppression experiment(ARC, 1986). On Aug 3 1983, a hail producingstorm was encountered that was too turbulentto be able to release silver iodide into the feederclouds from aircraft. Subsequently, a decision wasmade to release chaff into the inflow to study theairflow patterns of the storm by the ARC S-bandcircularly polarized radar (Humphries and Barge,1979).Four packets of chaff were released within...

Dytiscid beetles were surveyed to establish a baseline list for this county, which lies primarily in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. This list was then compared with that for an Ozark county, which had been surveyed in a previous study. Eighteen sites were surveyed by Turtox Indestructible ™ dip net and funnel traps. Museum holdings and literature records were also searched. Twenty-one taxa were collected, with temporary ponds and oxbow/cypress swamps support- ing the greatest diversity. These are the least disturbed sites inJackson County. Most species collected are generally widely distributed and prefer either shaded ponds/pools with some leaf litter, or shallow areas of ponds, lakes and slowstreams. To the contrary, Randolph County, on the Ozark Plateau, has more taxa (31), with many typifying Ozark streams. More specifically, Hydroporus was represented by seven species in Jackson County, but 13 species were found in Randolph County. The difference was the presence in Randolph County of the subgenus Heterosternuta, found invariably along the gravelly margins of clear streams.

Female reproductive characteristics of 17 genera of Arkansas snakes (27 species and subspecies) were examined. Most of the snakes (n= 495) were collected over a 10-year span (1984-1993). Methods used to estimate clutch and/or litter size were as follows: 1) counts of previtellogenic ovarian follicles,2) counts ofvitellogenic ovarian follicles,3) counts of oviductal eggs or embryos, 4) counts of corpora luteal scars, and 5) counts of neonates from egg clutches or litters. Inseveral species, Method 1 tended to overestimate clutch size as determined by Mediod 2 by as much as 100% (e.g., inDiadophis punctatus, Elaphe obsoleta, and Lampropeltis getula), whereas these methods produced similar counts in Virginia striatula and Thamnophis proximus. The largest clutch size as estimated byMethod 1was 79 ova in a 744 mmin snout-vent length (SVL) individual of Thamnophis sirtalis; the smallest clutch size as recorded by this method was in Carphophis vermis (2 ova; 182 mm inSVL).Method 2 reduces the total egg count by one third over Method 1inmost species, and this count was very similar to the estimates obtained byMethod 3, the most reliable way to estimate clutch or litter size (without actually having counts from egg clutches or litters). The presence of atretic ovarian follicles accounts for discrepancies found between clutch size estimates using Methods 1and 2 as compared to Method 3. Comparisons of clutch sizes inArkansas specimens to those recorded for snake species inneighboring states revealed similar sizes in 13 species; counts were larger in 8 species from Arkansas and smaller inonly one species.