550 



HEMIPTERA-HETEROPTERA 



CHAP. 



sculpture, which in numerous forms attains a condition of 

 elegance well worthy of attention. There are nearly 300 species 

 known, and in Britain we have about a score. The characters 

 we have given above do not apply to the genus Piesma, though 



it is usually placed in 

 this family ; its scutel- 

 lum is not covered, and 

 ocelli are present. Al- 

 though but little is 

 known as to the nature 

 of the lives of Tingidae, 

 yet it was pointed out 

 long ago by Reaumur 

 that a species of the 

 family (probably C. clari- 

 corne, Fig. 263), lives in 

 deformations of the 

 flowers of the Labiate 



x8 



FIG. 263. Oopium davicorne. Europe. 

 (After Riibsaamen.) 



plant now called Teucrium cliamaedrys ; Frauenfeld has more 

 recently confirmed this observation, and shown that the closely allied 

 C. teucrii affects the flowers of T. montanum in a similar manner. 1 

 Fam. 7. Aradidae. Very fiat, broad; scutellum exposed, 

 large or moderate; abdomen broader than the alar organs, which it 

 frequently encases like a broad frame. Front coxae placed in the 

 middle of the prosternum. These very flat Insects, of obscure colour, 

 have frequently very peculiar sculpture. They live under bark, or 

 on fungi growing from bark, and 

 are supposed to draw their nut- 

 riment from the fungi, though 

 but little is actually known as 

 to their natural history. The 

 family is almost cosmopolitan, 

 and includes about 300 species, 

 of which five occur in Eng- 

 land. The small sub -family 

 Isoderminae consists of a few 

 species that are placed only 



11 TT ,1 FIG. 264. Aradus orientalis. Siam. 



provisionally in Aradidae ; they 



differ from the normal members by there being no groove on the 



1 Verh. Ges. Wien. iii. 1858, p. 157. 



