64 Psyche [June 
HEMIPTEROLOGICAL NOTES, 
By H. M. Parsa.ey. 
Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 
Anasa repetita Heidemann. 
On September 19, 1917 at Northampton, Mass., I found this 
species in large numbers feeding on the Star-cucumber, Sicyos 
angulatus Linn. More than fifty examples, both adults and 
nymphs, were taken on two vines. The rarity of the species in 
collections is undoubtedly due to the fact that its food-plant has 
been unknown to collectors. I noted one example of Anasa 
armigera Say on the same plant and another in flight nearby. 
Melanolestes picipes var. abdominalis Herrich-Schaeffer. 
The forms of this Reduviid which exhibit more or less red on the 
abdomen are usually considered to constitute a distinct species, 
M. abdominalis, as originally described by Herrich-Schaeffer, 
although there seem to be no structural criteria to separate the two. 
Stal! treated abdominalis as a color variety (var. b) of picipes, but 
Uhler? felt that the evidence at his command did not warrant his 
merging them, since he never found the two forms united in copu- 
lation though both often occured under the same stone. I have 
in my collection examples showing all gradations from those 
having only the slightest tinge of red along the connexivum to 
those having the abdomen entirely red; I have also a pair taken in 
copulation (Framingham, Mass., C. A. Frost) in which the male is 
an entirely black long-winged picipes and the female a short- 
winged abdominalis, with red connexivum. It would seem there- 
fore that the abdominalis form should be ranked as a mere color 
variety and not as a species distinct from picipes, as I have done 
in my New England list. 
The consideration of this case brings up the matter of color 
varieties and subspecific forms in general. In the study of some 
groups of insects, notably ants, the subdivisions of species are 
treated according to a definite system based on a relatively com- 
1Enum. Hem. 2, 1872, p. 107. 
2 Hem. west of Mississippi River, Bull. U. S. Geol. & Geog. Surv. Terr., II., No. 5, 1876, p. 330. 
