THE TOAD BUGS. 1025 



hind angle of each segment slightly prolonged. Length, 7.5 — 9 mm.; 

 width, 5— 6 mm. (Fig. 205). 



Common throughout Indiana, apparently more so in the 

 northern counties. Occurs throughout the year, both adults 

 and the larger nymphs hibernating in cavities in the mud or 

 muck along the margins of streams and lakes. Arch Creek, 

 R. P. Park, Sarasota and Dunedin, Fla., December — April. Bar- 

 ber records it from a dozen or more stations in that State. Its 

 recorded range extends from "Lower Canada" (Uhler, 1884) 

 and New England west to the Pacific and southwest to Florida, 

 Arizona, Mexico and Central America, but many of these rec- 

 ords doubtless refer to other species. Uhler (1884, 263) calls 

 it : "A variously tinted chunk of insect entity," and likens its 

 form to that of "an Indian hoe or stone skin-dresser." He says : 



"They may often be seen in the month of May walking about between 

 the stones on the low banks of brooks and streams where Tettix and 

 Batrachidea (grouse-locusts) abound, watching an opportunity to seize 

 one of these insects, and when the favorable moment arrives, leaping 

 suddenly upon one of them, clasping it with tight embrace between the 

 front femora and tibia? and then sucking out all its vital juices. It leaps 

 with extraordinary facility, and in this way often eludes its pursuers by 

 alighting on spots which almost exactly match its colors." 



Hungerford (1923c, 167) states that the eggs are laid in the 

 sand, hatch in twelve days, pass through five instars and reach 

 maturity in 47 to 89 days from egg to adult, or 60 to 100 

 days for total development. 



1167 ( — ). Gelastocoris barberi Bueno, 1923, 393. 



Broadly oval. Upper surface variegated with black, bronze and blue, 

 thickly beset with small white tubercles, giving it a shagreened aspect; 

 legs dull white touched with brown, spines black. Eyes prominent, in- 

 clined forward. Pronotum two and three-fifth times broader than long, 

 basal three-fourths of side margins rounded, converging in front, sub- 

 angulate at middle; disk convex, the median obtuse tubercles prominent; 

 scutellum convex, wider than long. Elytra not passing abdomen, their 

 tips broadly rounded; membrane very short. Front femora shorter than 

 tibiae and tarsi united, grooved, edges of groove spinose; middle femora 

 three times as thick and longer than tibia?; hind legs longest, their femora 

 not spined, tibia? longer than femora, beset with long seta?. Length, 

 6.3 mm. 



Known only from the single male type taken Oct. 16 at Mun- 

 cie, 111. 



1168 ( — ). Gelastocoris subsimilis sp. nov. 



Oblong-oval. Above dark fuscous-brown to steel-gray, the elytra 

 more or less mottled with large silvery-gray spots and smaller black 



