428 The University Science Bulletin. 



Genus Nepa Linnaeus 1758. 

 We have one species in the genus Nepa: N. apiculata Uhl. 



Nepa apiculata Uhler. 



Uhler, P. R., in T. W. Harris' Insects Injurious to Vegetation, 3d ed., p. 12, plate 1, fig. 

 1 f 1862. 



This species was first made known to science through a picture of 

 it which appeared in the third edition of Harris' "Insects Injurious 

 to Vegetation." In this edition Doctor Uhler added notes on the 

 Hemiptera. Then in 1878, Uhler, in his "Notices of the Hemiptera 

 Heteroptera in the Collection of the Late T. W. Harris" (Proceed- 

 ings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. XIX, Pt. IV, 

 1878), records the presence of "No. 26, Harris Collection, Nepa apic- 

 ulata Say MS., under stones near water, May 15, 1826," and adds 

 the following descriptive note: "The principal differences between 

 our species and the European one consist in the color of the tergum, 

 which is red in the latter, fuscous in ours ; and the length of the api- 

 cal tubes, which in ours are stouter and shorter." In commenting 

 on these comparisons, Montandon (Bui. §oc. Sci. Bucharest, VIII, 

 1898) says that Uhler, like Stal and Ferrari, attached too much im- 

 portance to color, and gives illustrations of the variability of Nepa 

 apiculata Uhl. and of Nepa cinerea L. to prove the danger of con- 

 sidering color of specific significance. He then states that the Amer- 

 ican species is a little more transverse across the thorax, the abdo- 

 men proportionately larger in the rear, and the respiratory tubes 

 shorter than in the European species. Again in volume XVIII of 

 the same periodical, under the title, "Hydrocorises de I'Ame'rique du 

 Nord, Notes et Descriptions d'Especes Nouvelles," Doctor Mon- 

 tandon adds that in "Nepa apiculata Harris 1862, Uhler 1847,* 

 . . . the superior part of the head is less boldly carinate, espe- 

 cially on the vertex, which is generally almost smooth, cjuitc feebly 

 convex." 



These differences between the European Nepa cinerea L. and the 

 American Nepa apiculata Uhl. do exist, as an examination of the 

 photographs on plate LI will show. However, without both species 

 for study, one would be compelled to remain in doubt or name the 

 species from its geographical distribution. Since there do occur 

 marked structural differences, it is well to note them. The antennae, 

 for instance, are very different, as an examination of figures 5 and 



*Probably a typographical error, because Uhler was born in 1835. Van Duzee omits the 

 reference: Montandon, Bui. Soc. Sci. Bucharest, XVIII, p. 180, from the list under jVepa 

 apiciblata Uhl. in his catalogue of 1917. It is interesting to note that Nepa apiculata was a 

 Say manuscript species. 



