436 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Its Problematic Food-supply. 

 No other account that we have had of it has represented it as occur- 

 ring in such remarkable numbers, massing in such innumerable multi- 

 tudes and entering buildings of various kinds. It is evidently gre- 

 garious, as we are told of its hanging in clusters like bees from the 

 limbs of trees; but the cause of its assembling in so large companies 

 and swarming in store? and other business places cannot be explained. 

 In both cases the food that the young would require for their develop- 

 ment would not be procurable, and speedy death would therefore seem 

 to be the natural result of placing them in such positions. As the 

 insect is one of the Hemiptera (belonging to a family next in classifi- 

 cation to that in which the notorious chinch-bug has place), it must find 

 its food by means of its piercing and sucking beak in the sap of shrubs, 

 trees, and fruit. 



The insect has been given the name of the box-elder plant-bug, 

 from its having been usually found upon that tree, JVegundo aceroides, 

 one of the common names of which is the ash-leaved maple; but it 

 does not appear to be known if it actually breeds upon it or merely 

 resorts to it for food. 



It Reaches the Mississippi River. 

 In October, 1895 (delayed publication permits this mention), exam 

 pies of the insect were received by me from McGregor, Iowa, with 

 the statement that they had become so numerous in that vicinity as 

 to be a nuisance to housekeepers, flying or craw.ing into every open 

 space. This occurrence is an interesting feature in the distribution of 

 the Zeptocoris, since from the location of McGregor, on the west shore 

 of the Mississippi river, it is highly probable that the insect, through 

 flight or commercial transportation, has already reached the opposite 

 shore and entered Wisconsin and Illinois. 



Its Present Known Distribution. 

 While at first known only as a southern insect, it has now become 

 a western one, since it presumably occurs in each State and Territory 

 west of the Mississippi river, ranging from the river to the Pacific 

 ocean, through Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Califor- 

 nia. To the southward, it has been found in New Mexico, and outside 

 of the United States — in Mexico. Northward, it is known in Iowa, 

 Nebraska, North Dakota and Washington. Intermediate States would 

 cover the entire western region. 



