554 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. m 



The goodly series seen showed this to be a rather variable species 

 with certain variations having geographical significance but that the 

 variations are clinal, merging by easy stages from one condition in 

 the north to the other condition in the southern part of the range. 

 Otlier variations are without geographic occurrence. The two most 

 conspicuous of the geographic variations involve corial punctation and 

 the shape of the head. The corial punctures in specimens from Mis- 

 souri, Tennessee, and North Carolina are distinct, numerous and con- 

 sistent, while the specimens from Cuba and the Bahamas show distinct 

 punctures only toward base of hemelytra and in rows paralleling claval 

 suture. Specimens from intermediate geographic localities exhibit 

 intermediate conditions so that there is no discontinuous break lend- 

 ing itself to the establishment of a named subspecies. This condition 

 is also true for the shape of the head. Specimens from the northern 

 part of the range have the head in the shape of a strongly flattened, 

 almost truncated semicircle (fig. 54), and as specimens from gradually 

 more southern localities are studied they are seen to have less trun- 

 cated outlines to the head until in Cuba, Haiti and the Bahamas they 

 present nearly semicircular forms (fig. 55). 



Among the apparently nonregional variations are: (1) shape of the 

 pronotal side margins of males which var}^ from decidedly constricted 

 through weakly to virtually not sinuate, with the most extreme con- 

 striction appearing in a series of five specimens from South Bimini 

 Island, Bahamas; (2) the apical end of the osteolar canal varies from 

 decidedly limited by an abrupt anterior curving of the posterior free 

 margin through a weaker and shorter curve to having the end fuse 

 imperceptibly with the cuticle bej^ond (widely varying examples of 

 this often show in material from the same locality); and (3) the de- 

 velopment of the subapical tubercle on the midventer of the hind 

 femur varies from completely absent in some females to strong and 

 elevated on a swelling in some males; all males seen showed the tubercle 

 in sufficient development to permit its use to separate males of this 

 species from males of all its congeners except curvipes (Dallas). 



Tominotus conformis (Uhler), new combination 



Plate figure 251 



Trichocoris conformis Uhler, 1876, p. 277; 1877, p. 372. 



Aethus conformis Signoret, 1881b, p. 425, pi. 11, fig. 54.— Uhler, 1886, p. 3.— Van 



Duzee, 1917, p. 20. 

 Cydnus conformis Lethierry and Severin, 1893, p. 65. — Banks, 1910, p. 99. 

 Aethus {Trichocoris) conformis Torre Bueno, 1939, p. 178. 



Diagnosis. — Within the genus this species may be recognized by 

 the great abundance of golden hair which not only forms a dense 

 fringe around the outer margin of the insect but also arises individually 

 from many of the coarse punctures of the dorsum and venter. 



