BUGS. 283 



belongs to the same genus as Xheferus above described, but is a wider, flattened form, 

 of shining black color, bordered with yellow on the sides of the abdomen, and with 

 yellowish legs ; but in the winged state it is much narrower behind, and the wing- 

 covers and abdomen are rather dusky, or i^iceous, than black. Nobis is now deter- 

 mined to be the genus to which Laporte and later writers have given the name 

 Prostemma. It is an Oriental type not represented in the United States, but is com- 

 posed of several beautifully marked, red and black insects, of more robust form than 

 the preceding. 



Australia and the neighboring islands furnish a group of small or medium sized 

 insects of very much depressed structure, which form a bond of connection between 

 the true Reduvids and the Aradidse. These are the Holoptilid^, an ancient type of 

 Heteroptera, having features of the Phymatidse and Coreidse, as well as of those to 

 which we have already alluded. They are dark brown, or yellow and black insects, 

 with a short, wide head, remotely-placed ocelli, curved second joint to the antennae, 

 of which the third and fourth joints are very loosely attached, and the hind shanks 

 are in some species furnished with a brush of long bristles. 



One genus has the second joint of the antennte flattened, curved, ribbed, and 

 notched at tip. All the prominences and edges of the body, including the antennae 

 and legs, are either fringed with long hairs, or set with close, short bristles. JPtiloc- 

 nemus occurs both in Australia and Van Diemen's Land ; Soloptilus, which has the 

 hind tibiae fringed with hairs and the third joint of the antennse short, and attached 

 before the extremity of the second, lives near the Cape of Good Hope ; while Maotys 

 has the prothorax triangular, the third joint of the antenna very short, and the hind 

 tibiae encircled in part by a brush of curved hairs, and inhabits the island of Java. 

 The rostrum is short, and remarkably thick in all of these genera, and one form of 

 Ptilocnemus is said to live upon the vulture in the Philippine Islands. 



By an easy step we now reach the family Aeadid^, which contains the most 

 depressed Heteroptera in existence. The prevailing color in these is a dead-leaf brown, 

 or fuscous, sometimes varied with reddish or pale markings. Two principal sub-fami- 

 lies embrace most of the species, the first, Aradina, having a longer rostrum, a groove 

 in the sternum, becoming less distinct upon the venter, a head with a more or less 

 angular process exterior to the antennae, and a thin, cleft, and lobate margin on the pos- 

 tei'ior end of the abdomen. 



The largest species in the United States is the Aradus crenatus. It is of an ashy 

 pale brown color, clouded and marbled with fuscous ; its figure is broad ovate, inter- 

 rupted by the expanded prothorax, which has a wing of an obliquely rounded form on 

 each side, and four complete ridges on the disc, with a short one each side. The basal 

 joint of the antennas is very short, the second and third are about of equal length, 

 nearly four times as long as the first, while the fourth is rather more than one-half the 

 length of the third, and conical at tip. Full-sized specimens measure nearly half an 

 inch from the apex of the long, cylindrical, granulated forehead to the end of the ab- 

 domen. This, in common with its congeners, lives beneath the loose bark of decaying 

 trees. Great numbers of species of this group dwell in various parts of North Amer- 

 ica, from the extreme north, on the Arctic borders, to the tropics of South America. 



The second sub-family, Brachyrhynchina, may be distinguished by the very short 

 rostrum, a second process placed behind the eyes, by the thicker margins of the posterior 

 segments of the abdomen, and by the wing-covers being confined within the boundaries 

 of the disc of the abdomen, exterior to which the connexivum is exceptionally broad. 



