THE NORTHERN LEAF-FOOTED PLANT-BUG. 45 



PUBLISHED AND DIVISIONAL RECORDS. 



The first mention which I find of this species in literature is that of 

 Dr. C. H. Hedges and the late Dr. Lintner, the former of whom men- 

 tions its occurrence in large clusters of twenty or thirty individuals 

 upon grape and corn stalk at Charlottesville, Ya., September 15. 1886 

 (Country Gent., Oct. 7, 1886. p. 753). Dr. Lintner states that the 

 species was supposed to have carnivorous habits. Mr. W. H. Ash- 

 mead includes it in his enumeration of the enemies of the cotton plant 

 (Insect Life, vol. vn, p. 320). 



In addition to the correspondence previously mentioned we have 

 received complaints of injury from Messrs. A. H. Mundt, Fairbury, 111., 

 and Charles L. Snyder, Oakton, Ya. The former sent eggs and young 

 nymphs found on a hedge plant during June, 1894. From the latter, 

 material was received that had been taken on Eussian apricot trees 

 and which were puncturing the fruit and sucking the juice, the fruit 

 presenting a withered appearance and bearing scars and marks of 

 injury on the skin. Nymphs of this species of the earlier stages were 

 found at this time (July, 1895) in considerable numbers on the leaves 

 and fruit of the same tree. 



HABITS OF THE SPECIES. 



The natural wild food plant of this species remains to be discovered. 

 Evidently it is a general feeder, and its observed feeding habits indi- 

 cate a probable wide range of food plants. 



Aside from their omnivorousness, these creatures agree in their 

 habits rather closely with the squash bugs, their time of first appear- 

 ance being later than that of either of the others. The nymphs have 

 the same habit of collecting during the heat of the day under, or on 

 the edges of leaves of their food plant which have become curled 

 and dried, perhaps from their own work upon the stems, all stages 

 being found sometimes rather closely crowded together in single 

 colonies. In shady places and on cloudy days, and probably also at 

 dusk, the nymphs scatter about somewhat upon the plants in the 

 immediate vicinity of their permanent resting place, but they appear 

 to adopt a particular leaf as a permanent abiding place and, even 

 though disturbed, return to that leaf day by day. These insects are 

 quite rapid in their movements, and when disturbed soon scatter in 

 all directions, to return only when the apparent danger no longer 

 threatens. 



DESCRIPTION AND DISTRIBUTION. 



This is a large chocolate-brown heteropterous bug of the family 

 Coreida?, somewhat resembling the squash bugs, to which it is nearly 

 related, but from which it may readily be distinguished by its more 

 slender form, acutely pointed head, and longer haustellum, antenna?, 

 and legs, but more particularly by the peculiar leaf-like expansion of 

 the hind legs (see fig. 9). The hind femora are much thickened and 



