426 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



safely included in our list of acquisitions, either as an 

 occasional visitant or a permanent resident, but we can 

 speak more explicitly of the Ploiaria, a species of 

 which we have netted, as well as Lygmis apterus 

 (Fab.), Coreus marginatus, Neiedes tipularius, and 

 several species of the minute genus Tingis. 



The last great family of this order includes a group 

 of insects irreverently called "Bishops," by many 

 of those who are unacquainted with their generic and 

 specific names. The mitre-shaped outline of their 

 bodies, as seen from above, is no doubt the only 

 character that can have suggested this misnomer. 

 Some of the species are of moderate size and prettily 

 coloured, but many of them have the faculty of 

 emitting a most offensive odour, to which no verbal 

 description of ours could do justice, but which may be 

 appreciated by any one who is familiar with the bed 

 bug. They might with some show of justification oc- 

 casionally offend us in this way, when they are under 

 the influence of alarm or irritation, but they frequently 

 do so without any apparent provocation, as many 

 persons have no doubt experienced when they have 

 been tempted to pluck and taste a raspberry, or other 

 small garden fruit, recently flavoured by simple contact 

 with the body of one or other of the species. From 

 the structure of their oral apparatus, they, like all the 

 other members of the order, are necessarily restricted 

 to food in a fluid state, but although they subsist 

 chiefly on the juices of plants, they are not strict 

 vegetarians. We have captured Eurydema oleracea, 

 Pentatoma rufipes, Pentatoma grisea, Pentatoma prasina, 

 and many others of the family. The egg of a species 

 of Pentatoma is described and figured in Kirby and 

 Spence, we once discovered a patch of such eggs in 

 the garden, and brought them home with the leaf to 

 which they were attached side by side in close contact 

 with each other. Curiously enough, while examining 

 them under a lens, with a speck of sunlight thrown on 



