SUBFAMILY IV. — REDUVIIN^. 553 



528 (733). Reduvius personatus (Linnaeus), 1758, 446. 



Elongate-oval. Color a nearly uniform piceous-brown, the knees, 

 tarsi and apical halves of tibia? paler; elytra largely membranous, more 

 or less translucent. Antennae with joints gradually decreasing in thick- 

 ness, 1 and 4 subequal in length, each about two- 

 thirds the length of 2 or 3, which are also sub- 

 / equal. Length, 17—20 mm. (Fig. 134). 



Cass, Kosciusko, Marion, Putnam and 

 Vigo counties, Ind., June 11 — July 9; 

 probably occurs throughout the State. 

 Borden Springs, Ala., Aug. 15. This is a 

 palsearctic European species, ranging in 

 this country from Quebec and New Eng- 

 land west to Kansas and south to Florida, 

 where it has been recorded from Bellaire 

 and Jacksonville. It occurs for the most 

 part in houses, and is known as the 

 (After Brehm). "masked bed-bug hunter," both adults 



and nymphs covering themselves with lint and dust and 

 hiding in corners and crevices in waiting for their unsavory 

 prey. In Indiana the adults are most common in June, flying 

 to light at dusk. Fracker (1913, 229) states that this is "our 

 very notorious kissing-bug." In this he was mistaken, that 

 honor belonging to Melanolestes picipes H.-S. However, Leconte 

 (1855) stated that: "When caught or unskillfully handled it 

 always stings with its beak. In this case the pain is almost 

 equal to that of the bite of a snake, and the swelling and irri- 

 tation which result from it will sometimes last for a week. Its 

 food consists of flies and other soft insects which it catches 

 very adroitly and soon deprives of all their juices." 



II. Triatoma Laporte, 1832, 11. 



Rather large elongate-oval, subglabrous species having the 

 front part of head very long, porrect, subcylindrical, hind part 

 constricted to a neck some distance behind the eyes ; ocelli 

 widely separated, distant from the eyes ; hind lobe of pronotum 

 with humeral angles broadly rounded ; front lobe convex, usu- 

 ally with a small tubercle each side of the impressed median 

 line; apex of scutellum prolonged as an obtuse more or less 

 cylindrical horizontal spine ; prosternum deeply sulcate, de- 

 clivent in front ; abdomen widely expanded, the connexivum 

 broadly exposed and reflexed. Twenty or more species are 



