258 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARTHROPODS. 



four black bands are very conspicuous, as also one or two upon the tarsi ; and the 

 femora of the other legs are less distinctly banded and spotted with the same color. 

 It measures one inch and nine-tenths in length, by one inch in breadth across the 

 wing-covers. 



At the same time this great basin, in common with Nicaragua, harbors the neatest 

 pigmy of the genus that has yet been discovered. This is a pretty little species, with 

 a purplish tint floating over its olive brown upper surface, the costal margin pale 

 testaceous; and the underside of the body, together with the legs, also testaceous, and 

 the latter variously banded with brown. Individuals of this form measure no more 

 than half an inch- in length, and many of them are still smaller. It is one of the 

 narrow-bodied species, with eight simple nerves to the membrane, and may be called 

 Z. minuscida. 



All the forms of this genus, so far as their habits have been observed, are remarkable 

 for securing the eggs, attached in a layer, to the surface of the wing-covers. There they 

 remain fixed until the larvas are ready to escape, or sometimes till a few of them have 

 hatched out, when the insect shakes them all off and they fall to the bottom. Very 

 shortly after leaving the egg they are ready to take nourishment ; and if a young 

 mollusc happens to be near it is instantly pierced by the rostrum of the insect and 

 sucked to death. The eggs are attached to the hemelytra by a kind of glue which is 

 impervious to water; but the method of placing them there has not yet been observed 

 and recorded. 



Other genera allied to these inhabit the southwestern States from New Mexico 

 southward into Mexico, and Central America. One of these, Serphtis dilatatiis, is 

 common in parts of Arizona, California, and Mexico. It is wider and more bluntly 

 ovate than in the preceding genus, has the head much wider in front, with very 

 prominent eyes, the antennas concealed in a deep enclosure next the eyes, composed 

 of three joints, of which the second only is produced and angular towards the side. 

 It is of a brown color like that of a dead leaf, and at the bottom of the water might 

 readily be mistaken for such an object. Some specimens acquire a red color by 

 being immersed in water stained by clays impregnated with oxide of iron. The 

 membrane is quite short, but carried j^retty far around the margin of the corium, 

 and furnished at tip with two series of moderately long areoles. These insects capture 

 their prey in the same manner as Zaitha, and have similarly curved fore-tibiae, tarsi, 

 and nails. 



Abedus contains somewhat narrower insects than the preceding, having the same 

 color and similar curved fore-tibiae and tarsi ; but with four-jointed antennas, the sec- 

 ond and third joints of which are produced sideways. Two species, A. ovatus and 

 A. breviceps, are smaller than Serphus, but inhabit the same countries, and ha^-e the 

 same habits. The eggs of all three of these forms are likewise glued to the back, 

 as in Zaitha. Diplonychus is represented in the East Indies, China, the Philip- 

 pine Islands, and Java by a pale brownish-yellow insect, margined with white on the 

 costa and sides of the prothorax. It is a very flat, ovate species, with numerous 

 irregular cells on a rather long membrane, and measures about two-thirds of an inch 

 in length. Sphcerodema is a broader, somewhat longer, similar form, which inhabits 

 Bengal and other provinces of India. It has the costal margin of the wing-covers 

 broadly depressed and pale ; the lateral margin of the prothorax is also similarly 

 depressed and pale. These two last genera have no representatives in America, and 

 are strictly confined to the lowlands of the eastern hemisphere. 



