1889.] 4 27 



A NEW SPECIES OP ANTHOCOEIS. 

 BY J. W. DOUGLAS, F.E.S. 



Anthocoris VISCI. 



Narrow, sides beyond the thorax straight, parallel ; upper surface (the head on 

 the under-side also) fulvo-testaceous, clothed with delicate, very short, yellowish 

 pubescence ; antennas and legs concolorous. Head, pronotum, scutellum, cuneus, 

 and membrane very glossy. Antennas slender ; 1st joint shortest, reaching scarcely 

 beyond the apex of the head, unicolorous ; 2nd more than twice as long, apex black ; 

 3rd and 4th each longer than the 1st, sub-equal, entirely, or only gradually up the 

 apex, black. Eyes black. Rostrum black, not reaching to the prosternurn. Prono- 

 tum transverse, trapezoidal, sides straight, not constricted, nor curved out ; posterior 

 margin widely emarginate ; surface with a deep transverse sulcation beyond the 

 middle, posterior to this the colour is black or fuscous. Scutellum black, with a 

 posterior deep sulcate deflexion. Elytra : — clavus with a black spot at the apex ; 

 corium dull, posteriorly a large, subtriangular, black spot, not extending to the 

 embolium, sometimes separated into two by a pale streak ; cuneus black, distinctly 

 punctured, the margin testaceous, the basal suture marked with a more or less 

 yellowish line ; membrane black, iridescent, with three large white spots, one of 

 them at the base, undefined, the two others clearly defined, large, subreniform, clear, 

 diaphanous, one of them below the cuneus, the other beyond the middle of the 

 inner margin. Under-side glossy, black, the prosternurn anteriorly (sometimes 

 almost wholly) fulvo-testaceous ; the abdomen at the end (sometimes almost entirely) 

 rufous. 6* > ? • Length, 3 mm. 



On October 4th, Dr. Chapman sent rne a few specimens which he 

 had just previously taken exclusively from mistletoe (Vis cum alluni) 

 at Hereford ; amongst them were two pupae, showing that the brood 

 had been reared on the mistletoe, where, like congeneric species on 

 other plants, they had doubtless lived on Aphides, in this case on some 

 special to the plant. These examples at once arrested attention by 

 their uniform small size, light colour, and lustre, and as I could not 

 identify them exactly with any species, I concluded to describe them 

 as new, under the name of A. visci. But as I did not possess some 

 of the described species, I determined first to refer to Dr. A. Puton's 

 superior knowledge, and ask his opinion of the species, which he has 

 kindly given, as follows, and which I think is conclusive : — 



" I send you two Anthocoris Minki, from Bohemia ; one of them (red) is the 

 type, the other (brown) is the var. simulans, Beut. These examples should be 

 properly named, for they have been seen by Reuter, the author of the ' Mouographia 

 Anthocoridarum.' A. visci is certainly different from it by its smaller size, the 

 pronotum straighter at the sides, and the corium entirely opaque. This last 

 character separates it from A. sarothamni, which is about the same size. By the 

 opaque corium it approaches much more to A. confusus, Reut., but visci, although 



