278 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARTHROPODS. 



but the end, by the ample wing-covers, which are sinuated near the tip. Perfect 

 specimens have a slender spine standing: erect on the scutellum, and behind this a 

 slender'process which bends forwards ; the venter has three pairs of spines along the 

 middle, and a single series of shorter ones near the outer margin. The fore-thighs are 

 long, moderately thick and armed beneath with close set, short, stiff bristles, and a 

 row of remotely placed vertical spines, against which the shorter tibire shut back. 

 Only the male is here recorded, as the female has not yet been made known. Its 

 color is pale clay yellow, marked with brown ; the eyes, the transverse groove on the 

 head, and the base of the rostrum are black. Brown bands cross the antennae, the 

 femora and the tibia?, while the posterior femora are also streaked with brown. The 

 prothorax is striped anteriorly with the same color, which also appears on the sternum 

 of the narrow peduncle, and its sides are black. The abdomen is pale at base, but 

 darker behind, and the anal segment is black, with a middle stripe and two lateral 

 lines of a yellowish color. The wing-covers are milky-white, lichenated with brown 

 of various shades. It measures half an inch in length to the end of the abdomen. 

 The original came from Mexico, and it is possible that the other specimens distributed 

 in the collections may prove to be distinct species, since they are more slender than 

 the one here described, and lack the spines of the underside of the abdomen. The 

 family as at present constituted contains about thirteen genera and forty species, from 

 nearly all of the temperate and tropical parts of the world. Thus far the Orient and 

 Europe have furnished the greater proportion of the species, so that the Ernesid 

 fauna of America seems very small in comparison. 



We now pass to an allied sub-family, the Stenopodina, in which the head is still 

 somewhat flat above and long, with the antennas attenuated towards the tip, but not 

 filamentous, and which has tapering instead of thread-like coxae and legs. The hind 

 pair is far longer than the others, but it is moderately stout. Here the body is elon- 

 gated, but never linear, and the last segment of the body, particularly in the male, is 

 depressed and foliaceous. The colors are generally tawny, marked with fuscous. A 

 very large species of this group, Stenopoda cuUciformis, inhabits the southern United 

 States from North Carolina southward to Cuba and westward to Mexico. It is of a pale, 

 dull tawny color, with spines, and stiff bristles spread over the surface of the head and 

 thorax, and bristly hairs upon the wing-covers, sides of tergum, legs and antennae. 

 The head is nearly cylindrical, a little flattened on top, very nearly as long as the 

 prothorax, ribbed and grooved lengthwise, having the central ridge forked at tip, with 

 some stripes on the cheeks, the throat, and the raised lines whitish, and the spines and 

 bristles blackish. The antennae are nearly as long as the abdomen, the basal joint is 

 thicker than the others, shorter than the second, and is set with stiff blackish bristles, 

 while the third, fourth, and intervening jointlets are very slender, delicately hairy and 

 thread-like. A rather small but very characteristic form, with the prothorax of long 

 triangular outline, sinuated on the sides, having the front angles acuminate and the 

 posterior ones produced into somewhat blunt processes, and with two longitudinal, flat 

 ridges spreading apart behind, ending in prominent tubercles, presents a facies unlike 

 that of any other group of the Reduviodea. The discoidal areole of the corium, and 

 usually two streaks on the membrane, are black ; and the end of the posterior femora 

 is broadly clouded with brown. Beneath, on the middle of the abdomen, is a strongly 

 elevated keel. The sides of the thorax, and the posterior coxae are striped with 

 brown ; several carinate, pale lines run across the pleura of the prothorax, and its 

 lateral margins are ribbed and remotely spinous. It measures about one inch to the 



