Genus PLEA. 

 Plea, Ze«c/*, Tr.Linn. Soc. xii, p. 11 (1817) ; Saimd. Hem. Het. Brit. 



Islds. p. 329 (1892) ; Kirk. Wien. ent. Zeit. xxiii, p. 120 (1904). 

 Ploa, Stephens, Cat. Brit. Ins. ii, p. 354 (1829). 

 Ploea, Dougl. ^' Scott, Cat. Brit. Hem. p. 61 (1876). 



Type, P. minutissima, Fabr., a Palaearctic species*. 



Distribution. Palaearctic and Oriental Regions ; probably more 

 widely distributed. 



Body not quite twice as long as wide ; head broad, eyes 

 widely separated ; rostrum three-jointed ; pronotum rounded 

 anteriorly, lateral margins short, base considerably posteriorly 

 produced ; scutellum small, triangular ; tegmina short, deflected 

 posteriorly and with no distinct membrane, a small portion is 

 divided by a suture near the exterior basal angle, which by some 

 entomologists has been regarded as homologous to an embolium; 

 legs simple, tarsi two-jointed. 



1527. Plea liturata, Fieb. Abh. bdhm. Ges. Wiss. (5) iii, p. 297, tab. 11, 

 figs. 4-6 (1845). 



I only know this species by Fieber's description and figure, 



both of which are repro- 

 duced : — " Front with two 

 short dashes, eyes brown ; 

 a small black spot near 

 each latei'al angle and a 

 similat' one at central base 

 o£ pronotum ; corium with 

 a triangular transverse 

 fascia and a brown spot 

 at the apex. Dirty yel- 

 lowish punctured with 

 brown ; two short brown 

 dashes on middle of front 

 between eyes ; pronotum 

 near the anterior margin 

 with two transverse callosities, the shoulder-angles and a pro- 

 tuberance on the middle of the hind margin with a small black 

 spot ; scutellum dirty yellow, with two longitudinal stripes broad 

 at base and transverse behind ; tegmina posteriorly almost per- 

 pendicularly truncate, rather more highly arched behind than 

 before, and a brown band with blackish dots in punctures ex- 

 tending to terminal angle of clavus, broad before the middle of 

 outer border, internally oblique and triangularly narrowed ; apex 

 of tegmina with an almost quadrangular brown spot ; underside 

 brownish-yellow ; legs yellowish-white." 

 Length about 2 millim. 

 Hab. " Ostindien " (Br. Heifer). 



* M'Gregor and Kirkaldy (Tr. Perthshire Soc. 1899, p. 5) have proposed, 

 for what they consider valid reason in the vexed questiou of priority in 

 nomenclatiu-e, that this species should be renamed P. leacki. I have, however, 

 here retained tlie well-known name. 



Fig. 2%.— Plea liturata. 



