THE AMBUSH BUGS. 



503 



on inner lower side; front tarsus with two stout spines on lower face, 

 and ending- in two long claws, the outer one the shorter; the tarsus 

 retractile to form with the tibia a raptorial and prehensile organ. 

 Length, 3 — 4 mm. (Fig. 122). 



Putnam Co., Ind., Oct. 17. Dunedin and R. 

 P. Park, Fla., Dec. 9— March 19. One was 

 taken at Dunedin from beneath a board on the 

 margin of a pond ; at the Park several at elec- 

 tric light in room, others by sifting weed debris 

 in damp places. Ranges from New England 

 west to Utah and southwest to Florida, Ari- 

 zona, Cuba and Mexico. Say's type was from 

 Pennsylvania and having been destroyed, the 

 insect was redescribed by Uhler (1892, 181) 

 as Hymenodectes culicis. Bergroth (1913a, 265) 

 restored Say's specific name and later (1915, 

 292) placed it under Blanchard's genus which 

 was founded for a Chilean species. In some 

 specimens the median impression on middle 

 lobe of pronotum is in the form of an entire 

 line, in others only as a central fovea. Johann- 

 sen (1909, 1) notes it as swarming and hover- 

 ing in the air about six feet above the ground in his garden 

 at Ithaca, N. Y. The swarms were first seen on July 5 and con- 

 tinued until late August, appearing about five o'clock each 

 afternoon and continuing until sundown. 



Family XVII. PHYMATID^E Laporte, 1832, 14. 



The Ambush Bugs. 



This family includes a small number of stout-bodied, roughly 

 sculptured Heteroptera of median size having the head small, 

 porrect, bucculse large, forming a deep groove for the reception 

 of the beak; antennae 4-jointed, the terminal joint thickened, 

 fusiform ; beak apparently 3-jointed, the true first one rudi- 

 mentary ; ocelli present ; pronotum with front portion usually 

 strongly declivent, both it and abdomen with margins more or 

 less expanded and upcurved; elytra rather narrow and elon- 

 gate, their membrane either with numerous veins or closely 

 reticulated ; front legs raptorial with coxae elongate, femora 

 much thickened, tibiae curved and strongly retractile, tarsi 

 often absent; csteola wanting. Males with sixth segments of 



Fig. 122, Female 

 X 13. (After Jo- 

 hannsen). 



