THE VELVETY SHORE BUGS. 



1021 



1163 (1412). Ochterus americanus (Uhler), 1876, 335. 



Oblong-oval. Above velvety black, more or less mottled with small 

 irregular bluish spots and sparsely beset with very short golden-yellow 

 prostrate hairs; corium usually with five small submarginal yellow spots; 

 beneath with sterna bluish-black and ventrals dull brownish-yellow, 

 thickly and finely pubescent; legs paler yellow; beak reddish-yellow, 

 reaching second ventral. Front of head oblong, minutely transversely 

 rugose, its apex broadly rounded, somewhat flattened ; vertex with a fine 

 median longitudinal carina. Joints 1 and 2 of antennae pale, 3 and 4 

 fuscous; 1 very short, cylindrical, 2 twice as long, subclavate, 3 and 4 

 subequal, sparsely hirsute, each twice as long as 2. Pronotum slightly 

 more than two and one-half times as wide as long, its sides slightly con- 

 verging from base to near apex, then feebly curved, the front angles sub- 

 angularly rounded, the area just behind them flattened and reflexed. 

 Length, 4.5 — 5 mm.; width, 2.5 — 2.8 mm. 



Dunedin, Ft. Myers and Moore Haven, Fla., Nov. 26 — April 

 26 (Jl\ S. B.) . Staten Island, N. Y., and Lakehurst, N. Jer., Sep- 

 tember {Davis). Frequent along- the mucky margins of ponds 

 near Dunedin and often taken by sweeping low herbage in 

 such places. It is an active leaper, jumping a foot or more 

 when disturbed or while in the sweep-net. Its known range 

 extends from Massachusetts and New York west to Illinois, 

 Nebraska and Kansas and southwest to Florida, Texas, Arizona 



and Cuba. The blue hue of the 

 spots above and of the sterna 

 below appears to be a kind of 

 "bloom," as it is easily abraded. 



1164 (1413). Ochterus banksi 

 Barber, 1913, 214. 

 Slightly broader than ameri- 

 canus. General color above paler 

 brown but otherwise much the same, 

 the bluish spots usually less evident; 

 entire reflexed side margins of pro- 

 notum and the basal and apical 

 thirds of costal margin of elytra, dull 

 translucent yellow; under surface 

 and legs of the same color as in 

 americanus. Front of head wider 

 and with three entire carina?, the median one more prominent at apex of 

 tylus, the lateral ones subsinuate. Pronotum about twice as wide as long, 

 side margins feebly curved from base to apex, the front angles rounded, 

 the margins more broadly flattened and reflexed, especially in fi'ont, than 

 in americanus; disk shallowly transversely sulcate behind the middle, 

 sparsely rather coarsely punctate, the punctures usually concealed; 

 median portion of front lobe elevated and with two or three fine vague 

 transverse lines. Scutellum equilateral, sparsely coarsely punctate and 



Fig;. 204, X 10. (After Garman in 

 Hemiptera of Connecticut). 



