THE TERRESTRIAL TURTLE BUGS. 53 



near New Haven, Conn., and everywhere it shows a preference 

 for swampy spots." Uhler (1878, 368) states that "it is com- 

 mon in Illinois and Massachusetts," but Hart (1919, 168) men- 

 tions the taking of it by him only in one locality (Sun Lake, 

 Lake Co.), in Illinois, though other specimens in his collection 

 are labelled "N. 111." In Iowa Stoner has swept it in small 

 numbers "from timothy and blue-grass growing on low swampy 

 prairie and along roadsides." The color varies greatly, fresh 

 specimens sometimes having the entire upper surface tinged 

 with pinkish, while in others the connexivum is devoid of dark 

 spots. 



Family II. PODOPID^] Dallas, 1851, 51= (Graphosomatince) . 

 The Terrestrial Turtle Bugs. 



Species of small size and oblong-oval form, having the head 

 porrect ; eyes prominent, subpedunculate ; antennae shorter 

 than head and pronotum united, more or less clavate, their base 

 with a distinct tubercle between it and eyes ; pronotum with a 

 single prominent lobe or tooth in front of each lateral angle and 

 another, usually smaller one, at each front angle, the sides 

 therefore more or less concave and the lateral angles emar- 

 ginate (fig. 11) ; scutellum oblong U-shaped, its apex broadly 

 rounded, nearly or quite reaching tip of abdomen, but not 

 covering the basal portion of corium ; f rena absent or very 

 short ; corium with opaque portion narrow, triangular, the api- 

 cal margin very oblique ; inner wings with hamus wanting, the 

 base of median and subcostal veins approximate, subparallel. 21 



The family is represented in this country by but three 

 genera, two of them in our territory. The species are ter- 

 restrial and subaquatic, occurring amidst the roots of clumps 

 of grass and beneath debris along the margins of ponds, 

 sloughs and streams. The principal literature treating of our 

 species is by Say, 1828 ; Stal. 1872 ; Van Duzee, 1904 ; Schoute- 

 den, 1905-'06; Hart, 1919; Blatchley, 1924. 



21 By recent authors the species comprising this group have usually been treated 

 as an aberrant subfamily, the Graphosomatina? of the Pentatomida?. However, the 

 size and form of scutellum, absence of frena, peculiar shape of pronotum and corium 

 and other characters above mentioned are fixed and striking and of greater taxonomic 

 value than those separating many families of Coleoptera. The habitat is also different 

 from that of other Pentatomids. I have therefore followed Dallas and other of the 

 older authors and raised the group to family rank. By so doing necessary excep- 

 tions in the family key are avoided. The family is placed next to the Scutelleridae, 

 with which it is apparently more closely allied than with the Pentatomida?. 



