BUGS. 241 



armed with a long, acxite, movable spur. They are either plain colored, or decorated 

 in various ways with bands, stripes, and spots of brown, yellow, or other strongly con- 

 trasting colors. There are usually two forms in each species; the one with short, 

 undeveloped wing-covers, and less specialized body, the other with all the organs fully 

 complete. Both forms, however, are really adult insects, and alike contribute to the 

 continuation of their species. The group as known in this country may be distin- 

 guished by a reference to the large, although but little ornamented, quite common Libur- 

 nia vittatifrons. When fresh it is green like the grasses upon which it lives. It has 

 a tumid forehead, tabulated face, an epistoma banded with black, lines of the same 

 color on the coxae and legs, with marks or bands of fuscous on the breast and under- 

 sides of abdomen. It varies very much in the amount and position of the black mark- 

 ing, and some specimens are nearly uniform green throughout. In length it varies 

 from two lines to fully one-third of an inch. It lives on the stalks of rushes and reeds 

 in the salt marshes of New Jersey and Maryland, and is also found on grasses in 

 alkaline damp spots in Dakota and Montana. When weather-beaten or old, it changes 

 its color to match the dull straw tint of the sun-dried vegetation on which it dwells in 

 its native swamps. Some other genera, such as Delphax, Stenocranus, and Asiraca 

 are common to this country and Europe. The smaller forms are usually black, brown, 

 or yellow, and banded with white or other contrasting color. 



In the great family Cbrcopid^, we observe forms quite unlike any that have been 

 previously noticed, and some which mark an important advance in the direction of the 

 Heteroptera by the large size of the prothorax and increased freedom of the fore legs. 

 This extensive piece is no longer a mere caj> or scale as in most of the Fulgoridae, nor 

 yet a lid, case, or bubble-like expansion as in the Membracidse, but is an important 

 regional portion, exercising various important functions. Here the front of the head 

 is generally prominent, in the form of a ridge, which is crossed each side by a series of 

 more or less distinct grooves. There are two conspicuous ocelli placed on the vertex, 

 far back. The prothorax is six-sided or trapezoidal, cut square off in front, and the 

 triangular scutellum is of medium size. There is generally a marked difference be- 

 tween the apical area and the other parts of the wing-covers, the former being 

 membranous and sometimes transparent, while the remainder is thick and leathery, or 

 crustaceous. The legs are generally stout, the hind pair being longer than the others, 

 having the shanks armed exteriorly with one or two stout teeth, and the tip crowned 

 with short, stout spines. 



At the very verge of the group we find the anomalous sub-family Eurymelida. This 

 is composed of conical forms, with the broad, blunt head as the base of the cone ; this 

 part also lacks the frontal ridge common to the others, or has only a vestige of it. The 

 triangular scutellum, as long or longer than the prothorax, occupies all the uncovered 

 part of the thorax. Thick, slanting wing-covers, very slightly thinner at tip, extend 

 back beyond the end of the abdomen, and have a curved costal margin, succeeded by 

 a broad area with forking, oblique veins near the tip. The cheeks are very wide in 

 most of these, and almost conceal the fore-coxas. As seen from above, the abdomen is 

 very regularly conical, highly polished, and acute at tip. The legs are stout, rather 

 short, prismatic, armed with two teeth near the end of the hind shanks, with very 

 short bristles on the femora and shanks, and with the first and third tarsal joints long, 

 and of nearly equal length. 



Most of the species are steel blue, bronze, or black above, with a red or yellow 

 abdomen, and white, red, or yellow spots, stripes or bands upon the head, thorax, and 



VOL. II. — 16 



