210 SYSTEMATIC Z00LCX/. 



aquatic genera live under fresh water, coming occasionally to 

 the surface for air, and include the curiously shaped water boat- 

 men and the giant water bugs, represented by Belostoma (1 

 209), which in the United States attains a length of from four and 

 a half to six centimeters, and in Brazil may be as much as ten 

 centimeters in length. The semiaquatic are represented by the 

 long-legged water striders, which run about on the surface of 

 the water. The terrestrial include such insects as the squash 

 bug, particularly injurious to young plants in the kitchen 

 / garden ; the chinch bug, a great grain destroyer ; 



the red bug or cotton stainer, particularly harmful 

 in Florida and the West Indies to the cotton 

 plant; and the common bedbug (Fig. 210), a 

 household pest, reddish brown and wingless, 

 Fig. 210. Acan- which may attain a length of half a centimeter. 

 thm kctidana, a Belonging to this same suborder, but in a different 



bedbug, enlarged. ° 



(From Ludwig- family, is the big bedbug found in beds in some 



d^Thiefkunde 1 ) P arts of this countr y \ Jt attains a length of two 

 and a half centimeters, is black in color with red 

 markings, and produces a very painful wound. Here, too, belongs 

 the masked bedbug hunter, living in houses, and attaining a 

 length of from one and a half to two centimeters ; it preys upon 

 bedbugs, but its bite is said to be almost as painful as that of a 

 snake. 



Order 5. Neuroptera 



The Neuroptera (Gr. vevpov, nerve, and irrepov, wing) bear a 

 close resemblance to the Pseudoneuroptera in the adult stage. 

 There are two pairs of membranous wings, usually richlv veined, 

 and the mouth parts are adapted for biting except in one group, 

 the caddice flies, in which they are rudimentary. But the 

 development is attended by a complete metamorphosis, whei 

 in the Pseudoneuroptera it is incomplete. The order is not 

 homogeneous, and in the more extended classification is divided 

 into three orders. The group includes insects known commonly 

 as the hellgramite fly, the ant-lions, the scorpion flies, the cad- 

 dice flies, and the lace-winged flies. 



The hellgramite fly is a large insect with long antennae, and 

 in the male with very long mandibles, while the wings, when 



