INSECTS AND THISTLES. 57 



sometimes to a height of several inches. If, during 

 the act of rising and falling, the acrobat turns over 

 and alights on its feet, all is well. If not, the process 

 is repeated until it finally alights right side up with 

 care. 



The spring flowers of this locality are beginning 

 to blossom. A dainty little Legume, with petals pink 

 and white, grows in abundance in the damp sand 

 along the railway. A large coarse-leaved thistle, 

 Carduus horridulus Pursh., is in bud and flower, with 

 one head mature. On its flowers are two specimens 

 of Papilio palamedes Drury, and a greenish bee. Be- 

 neath its bracts and in the angles of its upper leaves 

 are two species of Heteroptera, or true bugs, and 

 two of beetles, the most common of which is a small, 

 light brown snout beetle, Notolomus basalis Lee. 

 Both bugs and beetles appear in a dazed, or comatose, 

 condition. They have probably been sipping the 

 juices excreted from the glands on the outside of the 

 involucral scales. In the north, many beetles and 

 other insects become dazed or intoxicated by feeding 

 upon the excretion of similar glands on the involucral 

 scales of Carduus discolor Gray.* 



One of the bugs taken on the thistle is Thyanta cus- 

 tator Fabr., a brownish green form, one-third of an 

 inch in length, which occurs throughout the United 

 States, but is more common in the south. It belongs 

 to the "stink-bug" tribe, whose members protect 



* See Can. Ent., XXIV, 1892, p. 310. 



