310 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Lygaeid, Qenocoris mdrginatus. These notes are of great interest, brief 

 though they be, and the coloured plate is excellent. Dindymus is remark- 

 able among Heteroptera, in having no less than seven moults and a some- 

 what long life-cycle, this being about 110 days. The plate shows the 

 ovum, the first, fifth and eighth nymphal instars, and the adult. Contrary 

 to the accepted idea of the food-habits of the Pyrrhocoridie, this species is 

 carnivorous, and was fed on flies. The nymphs apparently prefer termites ; 

 the older nymphs, as well as the adults, feed on thin-shelled snails, other 

 bugs, caterpillars, puptv, etc. 



The complete life-history of Ccenocoris was not worked out. The bug 

 is vegetarian, and its chief food-plant appears to be Toxocarpus 

 Wightianus. The life-cycle took 53 days, but may be shorter in wet 

 seasons. The plate gives two figures of the ovum, a couple of nymphal 

 instars and a figure of the red recently-transformed adult hanging from a 

 twig, and another of the black, fully coloured, mature adult. 



The mooted question of the Hemipterous phylogeny is discussed by 

 Kirkaldy, and he presents a family-tree, based on Schibdte's two main 

 divisions. In a brief survey of the various recent attempts to classify the 

 Order, he points out their deficiencies. His strictures appear to me well 

 founded, and the objections he urges should be plainly evident to anyone 

 who has a sufficiently extensive collection, or is at all familiar with the 

 literature. Now, as to whether or not Kirkaldy's proposed classification 

 will meet the exacting requirements of modern scientific research is a 

 question to be solved by experience and a wider knowledge of Hemipter- 

 ous metamorphoses and life-histories. I think there can be no question 

 that the Heteroptera is one of the most ancient and most isolated groups 

 of insects, of which the aquatic forms are the most highly specialized and 

 furthest removed from the ancestral type. In the matter of the land forms. 

 I confess my views are more in the nature of pious opinions, since thus 

 far I have not studied them with the same minute attention that I have 

 given to the aquatics, and therefore my interpretation of their relationships 

 rests on the work of others. To me our Hemipterous groups do not appear 

 as links in a chain or osculating circles, but rather as the ends of the twigs 

 of the family-tree, vastly removed from the central stem, and still more 

 from the root. Therefore, in the majority of instances, on our present 

 knowledge, it is not possible to offer a phylogeny showing a direct line of 

 descent. From this generalization, however, we must except four of the 

 six families of Notonectoidere. These are, in the order of their primitive- 

 ness, the Acant/iiidce (Saldida. of authors), Ochterida ( Pelogonidte of 



