420 CONNECTICUT GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY. [Bull. 



M. americana (Uhler). 



Stand. Nat. Hist, ii, 274, 1884. (As Hebrns.) 



This species may be further separated from its relatives as fol- 

 lows : Fourth antennal joint is longer than third, first is longer 

 than second, the second being the shortest ; third is the thinnest, 

 the others being of nearly equal diameter and the first is slightly 

 curved. The hind femora extend slightly beyond the apex of the 

 abdomen: the hind tibiae are straight in both sexes, and the hind 

 tarsi two-jointed. Its life history and habits have been described.* 

 Briefly, the bug overwinters in the adult stage, and early in spring 

 emerges from its hibernaculum and proceeds to breed. The eggs 

 are laid in a transparent glue and hatch out in about ten days, 

 varying according to temperature. After five molts, it reaches the 

 adult stage in some six weeks. As it begins to breed about April, 

 it may have as many as four or five broods before the end of 

 October. The adults and nymphs in all stages are frequently 

 found in company. It seems to prefer the sloping banks of slug- 

 gish streams or ponds, or to perch on partly submerged sticks or 

 on the sides of springs or water-holes in the outgrowing mosses. 

 It is preeminently predaceous and will attack in force any insects 

 struggling in the water. This species is widely distributed 

 throughout the United States ranging over all the Eastern States 

 and certainly south to Florida, west to the Mississippi, and has 

 been reported from Colorado and Texas. 



Cheshire, 6 May, Hamden, 25 May, 191 1 (B. H. W.). 

 M. fontinalis Bueno. 



Bull. Brook. Ent. Soc, xi, 58, 1916. 



Only the wingless forms of this species is known. It is taken 

 in numbers in a spring in a marshy woodland, where it clings to 

 the long mosses growing into the water or walks about in leisurely 

 style a short distance from the rocky sides of the basin. The blue- 

 gray patches of pubescence on the dorsum are distinguishing 

 characteristics. The characters given in the table will serve to dis- 

 tinguish it from americana, for small specimens of which it may be 

 mistaken. In antennal structure it is near albonotata. 

 y M. albonotata Champion, (capitata Bueno.) 



Biol. Cent. Am., Heterop., ii, 129, pi. 8f, 17, 1898. 



This species was described from a single winged male from 

 Guatemala, Central America. It was subsequently recorded from 

 Riverton, N. J., by Mr. E. P. Van Duzee and later secured at 

 Westfield, N. J., by the writer. The specimens from the United 

 States agree with a Mexican specimen in Kirkaldy's collection and 

 with the type in the British Museum. In this species, as in the 

 other, the most obvious character is in the long thin antennae, 

 which are exceedingly characteristic. It cannot be mistaken for 



* Canadian Entomologist, xlii, 176, 186, 1910. 



