J. R. DE LA TORRE BUENO. 251 



not be surprised if they had some connection with the mating 

 habits of the insect and were employed in seizing the female 

 antennae during the act. Rh. rileyi also breaks off its wings, 

 and in this form there is a well defined line of weakness 

 across the hemelytra. In this species the middle legs in the 

 male are most peculiarly distorted, this furnishing the most 

 reliable character by which to separate it from tenuipes, in 

 which they are straight and simple. Being rather shy and 

 inconspicuous, and looking much like the nymphal stages of 

 some larger form, they have not been much collected, so 

 Rh. tenuipes has thus far been recorded only from the Dis- 

 trict of Columbia, together with rileyi which, however, is 

 also known from New York and New Jersey. Nymphs from 

 Quebec Prov., Canada, were included in his types of Haloba- 

 topsis b'eginii by Ashmead. The known distribution of these 

 two species is too limited to be real, and doubtless careful 

 collecting will add them to other faunas. And here I would 

 like to give to my late esteemed friend the Rev. J. L. 

 Zabriskie the credit that is his due for his most interesting 

 discovery and first description, unfortunately without a name, 

 of the form known later as Rh. rileyi, named by Dr. E. 

 Bergroth, who recognized its novelty, after the great Ameri- 

 can entomologist who referred it to him for study. This is 

 a very fair example of the reasons on which I base my dis- 

 taste for naming species after individuals. Is there not also 

 a Gerris named after me by a dear friend ? Yet all my share 

 in this was to send him for study some specimens received 

 under another label from my other good friend, E. P. Van 

 Duzee, whose, after all, is the real credit for having recog- 

 nized it as new. 



Returning now " to our muttons," we come to that fasci- 

 nating group which contains 



Halobatesmicans Esch. ; 1823, Nat. Ah. Dorp., i, p. 163 { = wuller- 

 siorffi Frauenfeld ; 1867, Verb, zool.-bot. Ges. Wien., xvii, 

 p. 458; F. B. White, 1883, Rep. Chall. Exp., Zool., pi. 1, f. 

 2. [all the other descriptions are also to be found in this 

 work] ). 



This form is included, because although not as yet recorded 

 from the North Atlantic Ocean, it is not uncommon on the 



TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC, XXXVII. 



