166 Journal New York Entomological Society. lvoi. xl 



BRIEF NOTES TOWARD THE LIFE HISTORY OF 



PELOCORIS FEMORATA Pal. B. WITH A 



FE^V REMARKS ON HABITS. 



By J. R. DE LA Torre Bueno. 



The aquatic Rhynchota present an attractive and fallow field to the 

 entomologist, and afford him an opportunity to tread in ways never 

 before explored. Of all the faunas, that of Europe is compara- 

 tively best known and most studied ; yet even in that, although classi- 

 fication, the skeleton of the science, is more advanced than with us 

 in the United States, but little is known of the life-histories of even 

 the commonest species, beyond, perhaps, a description of the ovum ; 

 or a surmise as to the number of instars, deduced from analogy ; or, 

 again, a description of one or two nymphal stages. The greater part 

 of this work, as I have noted elsewhere, refers principally to Not'o- 

 necta and Corixa. To this scanty store of information it is now my 

 privilege to add these notes on Pelocoris in the hope that they will fill 

 up a gap in our knowledge of American insects. 



Pelocoris fcmorata Pal. B. is to be found, according to Professor 

 Uhler's "Check List," in the United States. However, no mention 

 is made of the insect in the local lists of Osborn, Gillette and Baker, 

 or Van Duzee. Professor Smith, on the other hand, mentions it in his 

 New Jersey List and Lugger in his " Bugs of Minnesota," while Uhler 

 gives it as found in California in his paper on "The Hemiptera of 

 Lower California. " In this vicinity, I have found it al)undant, and 

 my collection contains one specimen each from Rhode Island, Penn- 

 sylvania and Maryland. Uhler, in the second paper mentioned, states 

 that it is widely distributed in the United States. 



Wherever I have found it I have taken it in large numbers. Pelo- 

 coris is a vigorous swimmer. In the spring of the year the bugs 

 may be seen freely swimming among the growing aquatic vegetation. 

 When alarmed, they hide in the soft ooze at the bottom or among the 

 weeds, getting close in to the axils of the leaves. Occasionally, they 

 may be seen in the hollows of lily-pads, apj)arently sleeping in the sun. 

 I have taken the bug in this condition, quite dry and seemingly tor])id. 

 At times they come to the surface, where they hang abdomen or dor- 

 sum up, indifferently, the tip of the abdomen breaking the surface 



