BUGS. 265 



the group is entirely unrepresented in Europe. Sub-genera differing from the above 

 in the form and proportions of the ridges upon the sternum, and in the appendages to 

 the wing-covers, inhabit Australia, some of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and 

 Africa. In two of these, Matinus and Sct/lcecus, the membrane is much narrowed, 

 and confined to the border of the corium. 



From the foregoing to the more comprehensive family, SALDiciE, is but an easy 

 step. Here we meet with a decided advance in the jjlan of structure, although some 

 of its elements still cling to the pattern which we have just left. JPelogonus has pre- 

 pared us to look for particulars of form suited to a more essentially terrestrial mode 

 of life. In the present family we have types which, like Galgulus, make holes for 

 themselves, and live for a part of the time beneath the ground. Like the members of 

 that genus, too, a majority of these inhabit damp soils, and are often found in count- 

 less numbers upon the salt and brackish marshes of our sea coasts. Their maimers 

 strongly recall those of the tiger-beetles which inhabit the same places. When 

 approached, or in any way disturbed, they leap from the ground, arise a few feet into 

 the air by means of their wings, and alight a short distance away, taking care also to 

 slip quickly into the shade of some projecting tuft of grass or clod where the soil 

 agrees with the color of their bodies. In this family we observe insects of small size, 

 generally having a black, brown, or drab-colored body, with white or yellow markings. 

 Here the head is no longer crowded back into the thorax, but stands out free on a 

 cylindrical base, with large and prominent eyes, still retaining a certain proportion 

 of the sinus which in the foregoing serves to enclose the antennas. In these the 

 antennse are long, unconfined, and placed well down on the sides of the cheeks, and 

 composed of fom- joints, of which the basal one is short, thick, and somewhat curved, 

 while the second is very long. The rostrum is very long, thick at base, with a short, 

 narrow tylus, wider labrum, and extremely lengthened third joint, succeeding which 

 the fourth tapers off to an exceedingly acute point. On the crown of the head a pair 

 of ocelli are placed close together like twin gems. The prothorax is either sublunate 

 or trapezoidal, and transverse, when the angles are more defined. The scutellum is 

 large, long, and acute ; and the wing-covei-s are complete, with a membrane usually 

 narrowing towards the tip, and charged with long, narrow cells. The legs are long, 

 having somewhat compressed thighs, of which the two hind pairs have spines on the 

 knees ; the shanks are long, slender, armed with remote, stiff bristles, and with a circle 

 of spines on the longer hind pair, serving to aid the creature in starting to leap, and 

 the tarsi are long, three-jointed, and furnished at tip with a pair of slender, curved 

 nails. Some of the forms are very broadly oval, but the greater number are elliptical 

 or long oval, with the outline disturbed by the prominent eyes. 



America is the principal dwelling-place of these remarkable insects, and in North 

 America especially may be found the greatest variety of species, and the most attrac- 

 tive designs of ornamentation. Every considerable searbeach from Cape Cod to the 

 Florida reefs presents some local form or variety of this type, and on the marshy 

 spots of the sea islands, droves of them may be frightened up as the explorer passes 

 from one bare spot to another. 



The most elegant species known, Salda signoretii, is one which is distributed over 

 the pale sand-beaches of Provincetown, and from thence to the deserts of Sonora, 

 Mexico, and which attains its full size and beauty of ornamentation upon the low 

 levels of the plains of Cuba. In the United States, however, upon the paler-colored, 

 but damp sea-beaches, especially near drains and marshes, and on the alkaline deserts 



