101 



colour. The wings, also, before that time, grow to their proper size ; and now, finding 

 itself arrived at a period when the forementioned circumstance of its confinement is no 

 longer necessary to its well being, it obtains its liberty, by making a hole at the end of its 

 cell, with its jaws and fore legs, large enough to permit its escape. 



" The separation of the thorax and abdomen, by such a long slender membrane or liga- 

 ment, is very singular, and the power the insect is invested with, by means of those jaws or 

 forceps placed at its mouth, is really wonderful ; for the number of insects, of a superior 

 strength, as well as size, which it is capable of destroying, is scarcely credible. It will 

 overcome a spider of twice its own size, if it can but get upon the back of it, by means of its 

 forceps and sting : nor will multitudes of other insects find it a less formidable enemy, if 

 they are not guarded by nature with a covering too hard to yield to the force of these 

 destructive weapons. In short, it seems to be an animal formed by nature, as one of those 

 instruments instituted for subduing and lessening the vast numbers of small insects that 

 abound in warm climates." 



LEPTOSCELIS PICTUS. 



Plate XLV. fig. 1. 



Order : Hemiptera. Suborder : Heteroptei-a. Section : (jeocorisa, Latr. Family : Coreidoe, Leach. 



(Anisoscelites, Laporte.) 

 Genus. Leptoscelis, Laporte. Anisoscelis p. Burm. Lygseus p. Fabr. 



Leptosoelis Pictus. Niger, capitis linea dorsali, tlioraceque crenulato rufis, lioc antice macula margineque 

 postico nigris, femoj'ibus gracilibus denticulatis, abdomine supra cyaneo maculis marginalibus rufis. (Long. 

 Corp. 7^ lin.) 



Syn. Cimex pictus. Drury, App. vol. -J. 



Lygseus crcnulatus, Fabr. Ent. Sijst. 4. 144. 33. Sijst. Rh. •2iJ0. ir (Alydus cr.) 



Habitat: Antigua. 



Head small and slender ; red, striped with black. Eyes round and projecting. Antenn* black, and 

 nearly the length of the insect ; four-jointed. Thorax red, with black marks near the head, and another 

 near the abdomen ; the sides lying high and angular. Scutelluni black and triangular. Hemelytra dark 

 (almost black), the apical membrane being rather less so than the basal portion. Wings almost 

 transparent. Abdomen above, blue along the centre, and red on the edges, indented with black: 

 beneath red and brown, as are also the breast and sides. Legs black. Hinder thighs, having several 

 spines on them. The proboscis extends to about the middle of the abdomen. 



This species is very closely allied to the insect figured in Plate 48, fig. 3. ; nevertheless, 

 their descriptions are placed very widely apart in the Systema Rhyngotorum. They 

 appear to form a good subgenus, nearly allied to Hypselopus of Burmeister, which is 

 confined to Africa. 



