BUGS. 261 



wrinkled, and sometimes obscured by two brown spots. The scutellum is livid 

 brown, closely, minutely piinctate, pale ochreous each side and at tip. The oorinm, 

 membrane, and clavus are livid brown ; the former closely, minutely punctate, sha- 

 greened, widely depressed, expanded, and pale on the costal base, with an uneven 

 ochreous, transversely protracted spot next behind this, and a similarly colored, 

 forked apical margin ; the clavus is likewise punctate, margined all around, and 

 with a spot f it base, a squarish one on the middle and a slender line of ochreous 

 on the submarginal suture. On the raised submargin each side of the prosternum 

 there is an oval dark spot. The tips of all the tarsi are piceous. It measures half an 

 inch in length, and fully one-third of an inch across the expanded part of the wing- 

 covers. In the best watered parts of Arizona, and in Mexico, this fine species dwells 

 in the quiet waters adjacent to streams, and in standing pools, especially such as are 

 grassy. The colors here given are derived from specimens preserved in spirits. All 

 these creatures are more or less greenish when alive, and the darker markings then 

 appear blackish, or very dark olive brown. 



Other representatives of the genus live in similar waters in California, New Mexico, 

 and Texas, and a close ally of the foregoing inhabits ponds in Dakota. 



The group is represented in America, Europe, Asia, and Africa by twelve or more 

 genera, and about fifty species. A single form only, Nciucoris exclamationis, has 

 thus far been found in Japan. 



A neat passage to the land-inhabiting Heteroptera is made by the concluding genus 

 of this family, Aphelocheirus. It is composed of the single European species A. 

 cestivalis, an insect which, with the general features of this family, has the elongated 

 rostrum as in Pelogonus. Here the labrum still retains the free lid-like form, but is 

 narrowed to the width of the rostral base; the antenna? are likewise seated beneath 

 the eyes, yet they are lengthened and extend well out beneath the pronotum. 



The species is very broadly ovate, flat, and thin, with the head longer than wide, 

 although deep seated in the pronotum. As seen in collections, it is a piceous brown 

 insect, with nearly all of the upper surface minutely scabrous and punctate, the head, 

 rostrum, legs, margin of the pronotum, and a large spot next each shoulder, margins 

 of the abdomen, and a few spots on its disc, and the posterior margin of the short 

 wing-covers pale yellow. The end of its abdomen appears ragged by reason of the 

 deep-cut incisures of the three last segments. It measures about one-third of an inch 

 in length, and dwells among the aquatic plants in brooks, ponds, and wells in England, 

 France, and southern Germany. It is of great interest from the peculiar manner in 

 which the wing-covers are shortened in its most common form. These are simply 

 short and wide leathery plaques, which fit down into a corresponding depression of 

 the meso- and meta-thorax, overlapping a little the base of the abdomen, and projecting 

 sideways into an acute angle as if to compose a basal abdominal segment. In the 

 winged form, however, the membrane is complete, the connexivum is widely uncov- 

 ered, and the base of the corium covers very nearly the width of the abdomen. 

 Here, too, the outer angles of the ventral segments are much more prolonged into 

 tooth-like processes. The fore-tarsi are also furnished with two claws of different 

 length, as on the other feet. 



Having now passed through all the groups of the essentially aquatic Heteroptera, 

 we reach the grand division AUROCORIS A, so named from the fact that all the forms 

 live in the open air, instead of beneath it in the water. It is true, however, that cer- 



