THE STINK-BUGS. 91 



nating beneath sticks and boards in a meadow and beneath 

 leaves and grass in a sandy pasture near the Iowa River, and in 

 summer has swept it from raspberry, wild cherry, blue-grass 

 and timothy. The white spot often found on corium is absent 

 in all but one of the Indiana and Florida specimens at hand. The 

 C yd nits ligatus Say (I, 322) is a synonym. 



Family V. PENTATOMID^E Leach, 1815, 121. 

 The Stink-bugs. 



Heteroptera of medium or large size and oval subdepressed 

 form, having the head usually porrect, triangular, much nar- 

 rower than thorax ; antennae usually longer than head and pro- 

 notum, 5-jointed, the first joint thickened, the second slender; 

 beak 4-jointed ; ocelli present ; pronotum subhexagonal, its 

 front portion more or less declivent, lateral angles usually 

 prominent, often spinose ; scutellum of medium or large size, 

 extending beyond middle of abdomen, usually flattened and 

 narrowed behind to form a triangle, rarely (Stiretrus) U-shaped 

 and then longer and more convex, its lateral margins each fur- 

 nished with a frenum reaching or surpassing its middle, on 

 which, in repose, the inner edge of clavus is received ; corium 

 with opaque portion broad and subtriangular ; membrane with 

 numerous veins; tibiae not spinose; tarsi 2- or 3-jointed. The 

 sexes are readily distinguished, the external genitalia of the 

 males consisting of several curiously formed hooks covered 

 wholly or in great part by a convex genital plate, while in the 

 female there are several smaller plates fitted closely together. 



This large family of Pentatomidae is cosmopolitan in dis- 

 tribution and is best represented in the tropical regions of both 

 hemispheres. Its members are terrestrial and leaf-eating or 

 predaceous in habit. But few of them are numerous enough 

 at any one time and place to do much damage to vegetation, 

 while some are very beneficial in destroying the young and 

 adults of other injurious insects. When handled or disturbed 

 all exude a liquid having a characteristic disagreeable odor 

 and taste, whence the common family name. 



In Europe the female of Acanthosoma grisea L., one of these 

 Pentatomids, is known to protect both her eggs and the young. 

 It inhabits the birch, and the 30 or more young, after hatch- 

 ing, are led about by the mother much as a hen conducts her 



