BUGS. 293 



its width, while the rostrum is very stout, and the fore-thighs flattened into plates. 

 It inhabits the southern States, and its green and yellow variety is distributed over 

 most of the country south of New Hampshire. 



The next family, the Scutelleridje, is very large, and comprehends a host of 

 genei-a and species, most of which are tortoise-shaped, with the scutellum covering 

 nearly the entire upper surface of the abdomen. Pacliynoris torridus is a common 

 but beautiful species distributed from northern Mexico to south of Rio in Brazil. As 

 commonly seen, it is polished black, or violet, with eight round red dots on the pro- 

 thorax, and fourteen upon the very convex scutellum, while the underside of the body 

 is glossy green. It varieo through all the extremes of color, from pale yellow to coal 

 black, and the red spots run together so as to give every proportion of red, even to 

 the extent of covering all the prothorax and scutellum. It measures about two-thirds 

 of an inch in length. Here also belong the Corimeltenina, mostly black, hemispherical 

 insects, common all over the United States. The Eurygastrina belong to this family, 

 and have a less deep and convex oval form, and are either gray and yellow mixed, or 

 some shade of brown, with a long but narrower scutellum. The Scutellerina are 

 represented by Libyssa, which has a thick, spindle-shaped body, usually of some hue 

 of green or blue, reflecting the light in rich variety of colors ; or sometimes the surface 

 is emerald green, covered with granulated asperities. It belongs to Africa and its 

 islands. The family AethropteeiDjE comprehends a large assemblage of flat, very wide 

 forms, chiefly of a black color, highly polished, marked iu various ways with yellow, 

 or sometimes yellow spotted or clouded with brown or black. All but two or three 

 of the species inhabit the Orient, Africa, and the Paciflc Islands. 



Glancing beyond the vast multitude of modern species, only a few of which 

 could here be brought into view, we are confronted by still another great assemblage, 

 the members of which equally sustain relations to the groups already enumerated. 

 These are the remnants of ancient faunas which have been saved to us from the wreck 

 and reconstruction of former geological periods. Away back in the dim distance of 

 the primitive past, when the scouring, of land surfaces by floods and tides deposited 

 beds of sediment upon the lower levels, numberless specimens of Hemiptera were 

 caught in the moving waters and there buried in earthy matter, afterwards to become 

 mineralized in the stony layers which have since been raised into the ridges and cliffs 

 that we fiiid to-day. The oldest known Hemiptera have been dug from the carbo- 

 niferous shales, and these have been provisionally referred to the Fulgoridse. But the 

 secondary rocks, especially the lias in Europe, have yielded great numbers of fossil 

 forms, and accordingly we have searched our own uppei' mesozoie plant-ledges of the 

 Atlantic seaboard for such fossil insects, but thus far in vain. 



More recent in geological time, the shales of our western tertiary formations abound 

 in the remains of both Homoptera and Heteroptera, and the plant-ledges of Florissant, 

 Colorado, are being made renowned by the careful efforts of Mr. S. H. Scudder, who 

 has brought to light great numbers of species in the large order to which these pages 

 are devoted. 



P. R. Uhleb. 



