THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 27 



a single moment, during the feast, did it pause in the work. When 

 not in possession of a bug, it was on the search for, or in the pursuit 

 of others. It manifested much eagerness in the pursuit of its prey, 

 yet not with a lion-like boldness ; for on several occasions I observed 

 a manifest timorousness, a halting in the attack, as if conscious of 

 danger in its hunting expeditions, although here there was none. 

 Sometimes, when two or more bugs were approaching rapidly, it 

 would shrink back from the attack, and turning aside go in the pur- 

 suit of others. At length, awakening, it would renew the assault as 

 before. On one occasion, when it was on the side of the vial, two 

 inches up, with a large bug in its mouth, I jarred the vial, so that it 

 fell to the bottom and rolled over and over across the bottom, but 

 holding on to its prey, it regained its footing and mounted up to its 

 former position. Occasionally the Chinch Bugs would hasten to es- 

 cape when pursued, as if in some degree conscious of danger. 



Fl s- 6 - The Insidious Flower Bug, ( Anthocoris insidi- 



osus, Say), of which I represent herewith a highly 

 magnified figure, (Fig. 6), may often be found in 

 company with the Chinch Bug, under the husks of 

 ears of corn. It is quite common in Missouri, 

 where I have found it in several different galls, 

 and especially in the Grape-vine Leaf gall, where 

 it was preying on the lice (Phylloxera vitifolice), 

 which are the architects of the gall. It has 

 often been mistaken for the Chinch Bug, and was 

 I upon one occasion sent to Dr. Fitch, by one of. his 



correspondents, for that veritable Bug. Yet it undoubtedly preys 

 upon the Chinch Bug, as well as upon a variety of other plant-feed- 

 ing insects, and it therefore becomes very necessary that the farmer 

 should learn to recognize it and distinguish it from the true culprit. 

 It is very true that, practically, it will be found almost impossible to 

 separate the sheep from the goats, and spare the lives of the former 

 while condemning to destruction the unsavory little carcasses of the 

 latter. Still, it will be some comfort to the grain-grower, when at 

 some future day he may discover his small grain or his corn to be 

 alive with Chinch Bugs, to perceive the bright orange-colored larvae 

 of the Insidious Flower-Bug dodging about among the blood-red or 

 blood-brown larvae of his bitter foes, and sucking out their life-blood 

 with ravenous avidity ; or to discover the little slow- going larvae of 

 the Soymnus group of Ladybirds, with such dense and evenly-shorn 

 masses of short milk-white cottony threads growing out of their en- 

 tire bodies that they look like little animated flakes of cotton wool, 

 crawling about among the stinking crowd and making many a hearty 

 meal off them, stink they never so badly; or, finally, to watch the 

 lizard-like black and yellow larvae of the Spotted Ladybird, and the 

 Trim Ladybird, with their short, robust jaws, or the greenish-brown 

 larvae of the Lacewing-fiy, with their long slender sickle-shaped 

 jaws, running rapidly about among the hosts of their enemies, and 

 smiting them hip and thigh without any more mercy than the Amale- 



