Bugs, Cicadas, Aphids, and Scale-insects 211 



by its reddish-yellow excretions. Howard says that experiments have 

 been made with this insect looking towards its use commercially, and that 

 the whole substance of the insect can be converted into a rich orange- 

 yellow dye which is readily fixed on woolens or silk by the alum mordant 

 liquor. The cotton-stainer is a handsome bug, reddish in color with pale 

 brown fore wings striped with pale yellow. The young are bright red with 

 black legs. Comstock says that this insect also punctures oranges in 

 Florida, so that the fruit begins to decay and drops from the tree. The 

 insects can be trapped by laying chips of sugar-cane about the cotton-field or 

 orange-grove: the bugs will gather about these chips and may be scalded 

 to death. 



One of the largest families of true bugs is the Lygaeidae, made notorious 

 by a small and obscure representative of it, which, according to the estimate 

 of the United States Entomologist, causes our country an annual loss of 

 $20,000,000. This insect is the chinch-bug, the 

 worst pest of corn, and one of the worst of wheat 

 and other small grains. Nearly two hundred species 

 of Lygseids occur in this country, and most of 

 them may fairly be called noxious insects. The 

 family's structural characteristic most readily noted 

 is the presence of but four or five simple longitudinal 

 veins in the membrane (apical half) of the fore wings 

 (Fig. 268). The antennae rise rather from the under 

 than the upper side of the head, and all of the members 

 of the family have ocelli (simple eyes). While most 

 of the Lygaeids are small and inconspicuous, a few FIG. z^z.Lygaus tern- 

 are comparatively large and bright-colored. The cus - (After Lugger; 

 milkweed-bug, Oncopeltus jasciatus, about inch 



long, orange above with most of head and prothorax except the margins 

 black, and a broad black band across the middle of the fore wings and 

 large black blotch on their tips, is a common showy bug on various 

 species of milkweed. An odd-looking, long-necked, common member of 

 the family is Myodocha serripes. It is about f inch long, with head long 

 and narrow, expanding in front, and rising from a bell-shaped prothorax, 

 the rest of the body being elongate and narrow. It is black, with the 

 margins, sutures, veins, and some spots on the wing-covers yellow. It is 

 common in meadows and thin woods, where it keeps half concealed under 

 fallen leaves and twigs. In the south a small species, Pamera languid, \ 

 inch long, dark brown with lighter brown on prothorax and fore wings, is 

 abundant, feeding mostly on meadow plants. 



Among the many smaller species, the chinch-bug, Blissus leucopterus 

 (Fig. 293), is the best known and most important. It is found nearly all 



