economic importance in temperate America. It does serious 

 damage to the cranberry bogs on Long Island, N. Y., where 

 the name of "Cranberry Toad-Bug" is given it. Sirrine 

 and Fulton (N. Y. Expt. Sta. Bui. 377) give its life history 

 and describe the five nymphal instars and the adult. 



Dark fuscous or black, of elliptical form, at times with contrasting 

 venation. Head, thorax, and legs speckled with small round dots. 

 Vertex short and broadly rounded, the disc depressed but slightly 

 raised in the center, the sides and the hind margins elevated ; bounded 

 in front by a pair of carinae which meet at the apex in an obtuse 

 angle. Frons long, with distinct median carina and more or less 

 obscure lateral ones; an oblique white band extending from base of 

 the beak up and across the gena and lateral lobes of the pronotum; 

 clypeus fuscous. Eyes prominent, usully brownish, revealing at times 

 light markings. Pronotum short, black. Scutellum broadly triangu- 

 lar, usually lighter in color. Elytra coriaceous, black, at times with 

 a metallic lustre; the veins run parallel and branch mostly near the 

 base and with two or three series of cross-veins near the apex. In 

 short-winged forms the elytra are convex, in the long-winged forms 

 more flat. There is no constancy in the venation of either form and 

 the veins are only slightly prominent. Hind wings thin and delicate. 

 In the long-winged forms they reach nearly to the tip of the elytra, 

 and in the short-winged forms they are aborted. Front femora broad 

 and foliaceous, black with scattered white dots, in the middle of the 

 upper and lower edges of the femora and on the tip, usually a large 

 white fleck; hind femora grooved on the distal part to receive the 

 tibiae; tibiae are all triangular; middle and hind legs fuscous, finely 

 and sparsely marked with white. 



Length to tip of brachypterous elytra 4 5.50 mm.; to tip of 

 macropterous elytra 6.75 mm.; width 3 mm. 



VAR. albovenosa MELICHAR 

 (1906 Abh. K. K. Zool-Bot. Ges. Wien., iii, p. 179, fig. 39) 



This color variety although less common than the typi- 

 cal atra occurs along with it in similar habitats. 



Body rusty-yellow; frons rusty yellowish; scutellum pale; elytra 

 black with yellowish- white bordered veins; these areas vary much 

 in extent and definition and are occasionally rusty-yellowish in color; 

 beneath and legs rusty-yellow, the front femora somewhat diffused 

 with blackish on the edges, with scattered white dots and flecks; 

 edges of the tibiae, tarsi, and spurs of the hind legs black. 



Both typical atra and its variety were taken abundantly 

 by the writer by sweeping grass in low f latwoods at Pasca- 

 goula, Miss., July 12, 1920, and in high pine land at Ellis- 

 ville, Miss., Aug. 24, 1920. Adults and nymphs were 



40 



