260 PREDACIOUS AND PARASITIC 



3. — Corium dull except towards the apex .. Gallarum ulmi 



(De Geer.) 



4. — Corium entirely dull. 



5. — Cuneus entirely shining ... ... Nemoralis. 



(Fabr.) 



6. — Inner angle of cuneus dull. 



7. — Larger, head and pronotum black ... Confusus. 



(Reuter.) 



8. — Smaller, head and pronotum in front red ... Visci. 



(Douglass.) 



9. — Elytra entirely shining ... ... Sylvestris. 



(Linn.) 



Probably all these genera are carnivorous and aphis eaters, and 

 it will be observed that each species haunts plants or shrubs which 

 are usually frequented by aphides in great numbers. A. sylvestris 

 is well known to the hop growers as a frequent visitor on their 

 limes, but they are far from recognising its beneficent mission, as 

 they very generally believe it to be injurious to the vegetation. If 

 the hop farmers had studied the matter with as much interest 

 as they bestow upon the liquids with which they endeavour 

 to destroy the aphides by " washing," they would have discovered 

 that the " needle-nosed fly," as they call it, is an active ally, and 

 passes its life destroying the aphides which really do the mischief, 

 which the farmer attributes to the bug. 



I have frequently seen A. sylvestris transfix a juicy aphis (and 

 it appears to me to exercise some discretion in this respect), and 

 after the gentle, or violent, as the case may be, insertion of the 

 lancets of its rostrum, to remain motionless, save for the rhythmical 

 movement due to the pumping action of the muscles, while the 

 aphis, sometimes quiescent and sometimes struggling, collapses 

 gradually, and is often at last lifted, an almost empty skin, upon 

 the rostrum of the attacker, to be presently contemptuously cast 

 aside, though still with the ability to feebly use its legs and move 

 away. Mr. C. J. Watkins has kindly informed me of several sim- 

 ilar instances, and Mr. Maclachlan in the Ent. Proc. remarks on 

 its activity in attacking Aphides in the hop gardens. I have figured 

 A. sylvestris on PI. XIII., at Fig. 2, and also the immature larval 

 form at Fig. 3. The characteristic hemelytron and antenna are 

 shown, along with those of P. arbustorum, on PI. XIV., Figs. 4 and 5. 



