2IO Bugs, Cicadas, Aphids, and Scale-insects 



and under side of body orange-red, and four black stripes on the back, is 

 abundant in the east and north, and is known to attack at least fifty dif- 

 ferent kinds of cultivated plants. It is especially familiar as a currant-pest. 

 The eggs are deposited in slits cut lengthwise in plant-stems. The best 

 general remedy for these bugs is the jarring of branches of the bushes over a 

 dish partly filled with kerosene. Comstock says that the most abundant 

 flower-bug in the northeastern states is a small greenish-yellow species with 

 two longitudinal black stripes extending from the eyes over the prothorax 

 and scutellum. It is long (| inch) and narrow (jJ, inch), is found in the 

 grass in meadows, and its name is Leptoterna dolobrata. The injury done 

 by all Capsids is by the sucking of sap through small jjunctures and prob- 

 ably also, in some cases, the pouring of poisonous saliva into the plant- 

 tissues through the punctures. The attacked leaves or buds wilt, turn yellow, 

 and finally wither. One of the beneficial Capsids is the glassy-winged bug, 

 Hyallodes vitripennls, a beautiful small yellowish-white insect with almost 

 transparent fore wings, with a dash across the apex of these wings, and pro- 

 thorax red. It feeds on other insects, and especially on the grape-phyl- 

 loxera in its leaf-inhabiting form. Lopidea media is an abundant yellowish- 

 red and black Capsid which has learned to like human blood. When it 

 cannot have blood it is content with the sap of wild gooseberries. 



The family Pyrrhocoridc'e is a small family of comparatively large and 

 stout bugs, often conspicuous by their colors, of which red and black are 

 the most usual. They may be recognized by their 

 having the membrane (apical half) of the fore wings 

 provided with two large basal cells from which 

 several branching veins arise (Fig. 268). They are 

 commonly known as "redbugs," and the twenty- 

 five species found in our country belong mostly to 

 the south and west. The commonest species in 

 the north is Largiis succinclns (Fig. 291), a rusty 

 blackish-brown bug about half an inch long, with 

 yellowish or pinkish-orange margins on the front 

 two-thirds of the back, and a transverse stripe of 

 similar color across the base of the prothorax. The 

 young are steel-blue with a small bright-red dash on 

 base of the abdomen between the backward-pro- 

 jecting wing-pads. This species ranges from New 

 Jersey to California and south into Mexico. The commonest species of 

 the southern states, and one of great economic importance, is the red- 

 bug or cotton-stainer, Dysdercus siUurcUus, which does much damage 

 by piercing the stems and bolls of the cotton-plant and sucking the juices, 

 but does even more damage by staining the cotton in the opening bolls 



Fig. 291. — Redbug, Lar- 

 giis succinclus. (Twice 

 natural size.) 



