BUGS. 263 



(I<t1gnhis is a heavier built form, with great, prominent eyes, which are hollowed 

 out beneath to receive the short, stout antenna?. This is succeeded by an expanded 

 plate on the margin of the prothorax which fits intimately against the eyes when the 

 head is set back, and forms an exquisite contrivance for shutting in and protecting 

 the antennae when the insect burrows into the sandy muck of its home, and also when 

 caught by the freshets which drive the grit-loaded water over such spots. 



Our Galyulus oculatus is a variously tinted chunk of insect entity, thick in front, 

 horizontal, and gradually thinning towards the bluntly curved posterior 

 end of the abdomen. The form thus resembles an Indian hoe or stone 

 skin-dresser. The sides of the prothorax are expanded into thin, bent 

 lobes, before which the margin is deeply sinuated, and then rises into 

 the smaller, hollowed lobes which fit against the eyes. These lobes 

 are ivory-white beneath, and next them the pleural depression is cov- 

 ered by fine, dense, pale granules on a dark spot. The upper surface 

 is mud-brown of any shade, or it is red if the creature lives in a soil 

 charged with oxide of iron, or blackish brown in carbonaceous mud, Fic y 32 - 



' ' ius oculatus. 



or clear light brown if developed in clean, sandy loam, or flecked 

 with silvery white on a mottled and variegated more or less olive greenish ground, 

 when its birthplace and home are in the micaceous mixed soil. Almost the 

 entire upper surface is closely set with fine, raised granules, which give it a velvety 

 appearance in some lights. Occasionally it frequents places where green slime accu- 

 mulates between the stones near the bed of a brook, and then it is apt to be covered, 

 and even permanently penetrated by the bright green color of the algae. The legs 

 are pale yellow, banded with brown ; the stout, compressed fore-thighs are generally 

 brown, interrupted by short, yellowish, transverse marks, the underside armed with 

 marginal, close-set, piceous, short teeth, separated by a longitudinal groove into which 

 the spinous, bent, banded, fore-tibiae fit. The latter are also armed with a bunch of 

 long spines a little way from the base, and between the others there are numerous 

 more slender, shorter ones, which are continued upon the tarsi. The apical tars.il 

 joint is also finished by a pair of long, curved nails. The other femora and shanks are 

 likewise banded with pale brown, and have a pair of long, piceous curved nails. 

 These organs are especially adapted to their predacious, carnivorous habits. They 

 may often be seen in the month of May walking about between the stones on the 

 low banks of brooks and streams, where Tettix and Batrachidea abound, watching an 

 opportunity to seize one of these insects, and when the favorable moment arrives, 

 leaping suddenly upon one of them, clasping it with tight embrace between the front 

 femora and tibiae, and there sucking out all its vital juices. 



It leaps with extraordinary facility, and in this way often eludes its pursuers by 

 alighting on spots which almost exactly match its colors. Prof. Cyrus Thomas informs 

 us that in southern Illinois it leaps in pursuit of Xya terminalis, which it captures in this 

 way, It is, however, far from showing a preference for small Orthoptera, but. seizes 

 with apparently little discrimination the larvae of ground beetles and almost any other 

 kinds of insects which come in its way. It is distributed from Lower Canada through- 

 out all of the eastern United States, westward to Vancouver's Island, and south to Lower 

 California, Mexico, Central America, and through South America to Rio in Brazil. 

 In the last-named country other species of different, forms occur, but our species lives 

 there with precisely the same figure, and presents many of the identical varieties 

 that we observe in our own land. A second brood sometimes appears in August, 



