116 FAMILY V. — PENTATOMID^E. 



of mullein. In Florida I have taken it by sweeping low herb- 

 age at practically all localities where collections have been 

 made, it being, between November and April, one of the most 

 common of the Pentatomids found in that State. Examples 

 from there are in general more suffused with red and more 

 often have the red band between the humeri and the black dots 

 on spiracles and ventral incisures than those from Indiana. 



7 . custator is one of the most widely distributed of our Heter- 

 optera, ranging from Quebec and New England to British 

 Columbia, California, Texas, Arizona and Northern Mexico. 

 Sanderson (1904, 94) says that in 1903 it occurred in northern 

 Texas "in extraordinary numbers, where it seriously injured 

 oats, corn and sorghum and was also in milo-maize and cow- 

 peas." Morrill (1910, 86) states that in the cotton fields of 

 Texas it is "commonly found feeding on the cotton squares 

 and bolls, when thus feeding being completely hidden by the 

 bracts." He also states that the average number of eggs per 

 batch is 31.4 and the average incubation period, at a mean tem- 

 perature of 79.3 F., is four days and fifteen hours. Hart 

 (1919, 185) says that in Illinois "it feeds on asparagus, corn 

 and various grasses. Collections in November and December 

 indicate that hibernation in the adult stage is usual." Stoner 

 (1920, 103) states that "At Iowa City we have usually found 

 it in some numbers in any field of red clover, especially if the 

 area was inclined to be a little moist, due to insufficient drain- 

 age." 



On account of the great variation in color and the occasional 

 projection of the humeral angles as a spine, T. custator has often 

 been recorded as T. perditor. Barber (1911, 109) speaks of 

 custator as a "very plastic and variable species," and says, 

 "There is little doubt in my mind that it is specimens of this 

 species with the spinose humeral angles which have been re- 

 ferred to by systematists in this country as T. perditor Fabr., 

 which species I believe does not occur within the limits of the 

 United States, either in the southeast or southwest." By 1914 

 he had changed his opinion and recorded T. perditor from 

 southern Florida. 



73 (161). Thyanta casta Stal, 1862, 104. 



Elongate-oval, subdepressed. Above greenish-yellow to pale green, 

 sometimes suffused with reddish, but rarely with a reddish band between 

 the humeral angles; joints 2 — 5 of antenna 3 , narrow side margins of pi - o- 



