86 STINK-BUG FAMILY. 
Metapodius femoratus Fab. (The Cherry Bug). 
This insect is stated to injure the fruit of the cherry by 
puncturing it with its beak, and sucking its juices, showing its 
good taste by preferring the sweeter varieties. It is sometimes 
very common in our state, though cherries are almost unknown 
as a Minnesota fruit. In the South it has been observed to 
destroy the cotton worm. ‘The insect, illustrated in two stages 
in Fig. 82, can be recognized by the dark brown color and rough 
upper surface, with a blade-like process projecting from the fore- 
head, and by the thick, curved, knobby hind femora armed with 
coarse, curved teeth, and the plate-like expansion along the hind 
shanks. 
Fic. 77.—Catorhintha guttula Fab. Fic. 80.—Euthoctha galeator Fab. 
After Glover. After Glover. 
FAMILY PENTATOMIDAE. 
(Stink-bug Family). 
Prof. Comstock writes very feelingly, showing that his re- 
marks were based upon experience, that “this is a family the 
taste and odor of which most of us know to our sorrow. We 
learn the flavor in one experience, and conclude that once is 
enough for a life-time. To those who live in cities it may always 
remain a mystery why one berry looking just like another should 
taste and smell so differently; but all bare-footed boys and sun- 
bonneted girls from the country who have picked the wild straw- 
berries on the hill-sides or scratched their hands and faces in 
raspberry patches, know well the angular green or brown bugs that 
leave a loathsome trail behind them; and they will tell you, too, 
that the bugs are worse than their trail, for it is a lucky youngster 
that has not taken one of these insects into his mouth, by mis- 
take, with a handful of berries. 
