20 
Aside from their preference for fruit as food, the species of Lepto- 
glossus very closely resemble the squash bugs (Anasa) in many of the 
details of life economy. The eggs are of similar color and net-veined 
like those of Anasa, but are of different shape and deposited length- 
wise instead of in somewhat irregular masses. During the early 
stages of the nymph the predominating color is red, but in the last 
stage the close resemblance to Anasa is quite evident. In the length 
of the stages of the life cycle the two genera do not appear to differ. 
THE EGG AND OVIPOSITION. 
The eggs are laid in the same manner as those of L. phyllopm, in 
single rows or chains along the stems or leaf-ribs of the plants upon 
which the insects feed. They evidently differ in coloring from those 
of phyllopiis, however, all that have 
been observed being pale bronze to 
dark bronze-brown, none of them 
golden. The eggs are semicylindrical, 
looking from one end, as shown in 
figure 3, c, and are rather strongly 
flattened on the lower surface, where 
attached to a plant. The outline, as 
seen from above, is short oblong, the 
eggs being placed so close together end 
to end that they form what appears to 
-vA^ ^S a (^ ^ e a s ^^' cylindrical rod, of which 
,X_jL / \ each egg is a joint or cell. At one end 
of the egg, covering a little more than 
half of the distance from that extrem- 
ity to the other, there is a circular area 
with a surrounding circle of light color 
and bearing a transverse curved row of 
This circular area comes off like a trap- 
door (e) for the issuance of the young. Under a microscope of mod- 
erately high power the entire surface is seen to be finely reticulate, 
with rather regular pentagonal and hexagonal areas (d). The length 
of an egg is about 1.4 mm , and the width l-1.15 mm , the height being 
a trifle less. A chain of eggs is shown at b (fig. 3). and the sculpture 
of an egg at d. Chains vary in length from those having half a dozen 
eggs, and measuring about three-eighths of an inch, to others having 
26 eggs and measuring li inches in length. 
THE NYMPHS, 
The nymphs when first transformed have the legs and antenna? rose- 
colored, the body pale orange-red, the eyes reddish or reddish-brown. 
The ground colors change, in all except the fifth stage, to brighter 
Fig. S.—Leptoglossits oppositus: a, mature 
bug; b, string of eggs; c, egg from end; 
d, sculpture of egg; e, egg from' side, 
showing opening from which young 
has escaped— all except d about twice 
natural size (original). 
from 4 to 6 elevated points. 
