J. R. DE LA TORRE BUENO. 249 



is mainly Southern, and, as noted above, not very abundant 

 about New York. 



Gerris {Limnoporus) rufosontellatiis Latreille ; 1807, Gen. Ins., 

 iii, p. 134. 



Excepting the oceanic forms, this is perhaps the most 

 widely distributed of the Gerrids, and excepting the parasitic 

 forms, one of most universal of the Heteroptera, saving per- 

 haps Nezara viridula. It is a dweller in still waters of whose 

 habits little is known beyond what is familiar of the other 

 members of the genus, such as its carnivorous habits. Noth- 

 ing is is known of its life-history, and unlike the other spe- 

 cies, it is scarcely ever seen in the wingless form. About 

 New York it is not uncommon, mainly in shallow marshy 

 pools, but its life-history still remains to be worked out. 

 This species extends throughout the holarctic region, from 

 Western Europe to the Eastern United States. Its most 

 Southern distribution in the East known to me, is North 

 Carolina, and in the West is Colorado, the former record 

 being from a specimen in the U. S. National Museum collec- 

 tion, and the other from the Colorado Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station at Ft. Collins. 



Tribe Halobatini. 

 We now pass to the tribe Halobatini which presents a series 

 of forms of a totally different facies. The general impres- 

 sion these species produce is of shortness and breadth of 

 form as compared to the d?;';//;/ which are long and narrow. 

 In fact, Bianchi used this comparative ratio of the length 

 and breadth to distinguish the two tribes (in his arrange- 

 ment considered as subfamilies), but Bergroth employes the 

 more scientic character of the outwardly curved inner mar- 

 gins of the eyes in the Halobatini in contradistinction to the 

 partly excavate ones in the Gerrini. 



Metrobates liefsperiits Uhler ; 1871, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., 

 xiv, p. 108. 



This is a species which like most of the other members of 

 the tribe, is lacustrine to a very great extent, and it may be 

 seen congregated in large patches of blackness on the smooth 



TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC, XXXVII. (32) 



