BUGS. 257 



pile ; and the whole make-up of these fore-limbs indicates the great power f/ilh which this 

 species is provided for the holding of its prey. Europe is remarkable for the absence 

 of these monstrous insects from her territory, one species only having been found, very 

 unfrequently, in southern Turkey and Greece, and this being in reality a form which 

 has its home more directly in Egypt and northern Africa. 



Closely related to the foregoing is a group of species of much smaller size and more 

 ovate figure, which belong entirely to the New World. These are members of the 

 genus Zaitha, which, besides the form as above indicated, differ from Belostoma in the 

 more prolonged, tapering head and longer rostrum, and in the antennae, which have 

 the three transverse joints long, nearly uniform throughout in thickness, and becoming 

 successively shorter as they grade towards the apex. The fore-legs are relatively 

 shorter than in the preceding genus, the femora are compressed, broad ; the tibias are 

 also compressed, but narrow and curved, with two-jointed, wide tarsi, armed with a 

 long, curved nail at tip. The species are numerous, variable in width, depressed, very 

 feebly convex above, with thick, leathery hemelytra, terminated by a rather narrow 

 membrane, which is crossed diagonally by numerous simple veins. The caudal setse 

 are also present in these, but are generally enclosed within the last ventral segment. 



Our common native species, Z. fluminea, abounds in the mud or among the weeds 

 of ponds and streams, being found from Maine to Georgia, and west to Missouri and 

 Texas. It is a paJe clay yellow, obloftg-ovate insect, with a round scar on each side 

 of the unevenly roughened prothorax, and the under side of the head, the coxse, 

 inferior margin of the prothorax, costal margin of the wing-covers, and connexivuin 

 are fiale testaceous. On the sides of the vertex, front of the prothorax, and tip of the 

 scutellum the color is often pale yellow, while the adjoining surface is faintly washed 

 with brown. The corium and clavus are olive brownish, and closely and finely 

 punctate ; the former is set with numerous irregularly-branching veins, and the mem- 

 brane is tinged with bronze. On the fore-femora, both on the inner and outer faces, 

 there is an interrupted series of wide black streaks ; on the inner side of the other 

 femora is a similar double series, not always distinctly marked ; and the fore-tibiae have 

 two dark spots of blackish brown before the middle. The tips of all the tarsi are dark 

 piceous. This species usually measures about nine-tenths of an inch to the tip of the 

 abdomen ; and the female appears to be somewhat broader than the male. These are 

 not so heavily built as the members of the genus Belostoma, but they have the same 

 predacious habits, and grasp and hug their prey with the hooked fore-legs. 



The equatorial regions of South America are the native places of many cuvious 

 species of this genus. There the forms present the greatest difference in proportions, 

 and the largest as well as the smallest are equally at home. The \-ast expanse of fresh 

 water spreading throughout the basin of the Amazon and its tributaries during the 

 rainy season opens wide avenues for these creatures, and accordingly we find them 

 everywhere across nearly the whole width of the continent, represented by numerous 

 species. Two very conspicuous and excej^tionally large forms inhabit this belt; one, 

 Z. eumorpha, is more narrowed in front than usual, and measures one inch and three- 

 fourths from the front to the end of the abdomen. It is of a nearly uniform clay 

 yellow coloi-, with the reticulated veins of the corium dark brown, and some faint 

 bands of brown across all the femora and tibiag. The other species, Z. dilatata, is 

 remarkable for its breadth across the wing-covers and rapid narrowing towards the 

 front. Its head tapers symmetrically in the front, the costal margin describes a large 

 arc, and the submargin and veins are flecked with dark brown. On the front tibiae 

 VOL. n. — 17 



