47 



A Rare and Curious Hemipterous Insect- 



By J. O. O. Teppee, F.L.S., Corr. Memb. 



[Read November 6, 1883.] 



Figures 1 and 2, Plate IIIa. 



A small thougli very curious insect was lately obtained by 

 me in tbe bills near Adelaide. It belongs to the Heteroptera, 

 sub-division Hemiptera, is related to the family of Berytidae, 

 .and resembles somewhat the English species Neides depressumy 

 and also some of the HydromeridcT, or waler-bugs, especially 

 the genus Ranatra in its excessively thin and long limbs. 



The body is linear in outline, and five-sixteenths of an iccb 

 long ; its greatest width — a little posterior to the middle o£ 

 the abdomen — is one-thirty-second of an inch, the remainder 

 varying between this width and less than the one-sixty-fourth 

 of an inch immediately behind the eyes. Its general colour is 

 ashy brown above, with part of the prothorax and the legs 

 Tufus ; below it is very dark brown. 



The head is conical, ending in a proboscis which is slightly 

 curved forward and downward, and is twice as long as the head, 

 the latter being two-thirds of the length of the prothorax, and 

 the two conjointly arc about one- third of that of the remaining 

 part. The proboscis consists apparently of an elastic bristle in 

 it sheath opening with a slit upwards, and has four joints, 

 xidmitting alternate flexure up and down, the last joint" being 

 black. 



The eyes are lateral, oval, slightly projecting, and have a 

 small protuberance or horn between them. Before them, but 

 <iloser together, the long clubbed antenna) are inserted upon a 

 blunt conical base. They consist apparently of seven joints. 

 The first or basal joint is short and several times the diameter 

 of the remainder, which is extremely slender, i.e., about one- 

 half of the thickness of a fine human hair, but nearly equalling 

 in length that of the whole body. The second joint is the 

 longest, forming nearly one-half of the whole, its anterior 

 extremity suddenly expanding into a short cylindrical club, 

 which is darker in colour than the rest. The third and fourth 

 joints are of equal length, and together about two-thirds of 

 the second, both slightly widening at the anterior joints, these 

 being also dark in tint. The three or four last joints form an 

 ovate club, the two middle ones being the thicl<est, black, and 

 ei\\xii\ in diameter to the club at the end of the second. The 



