Bugs, Cicadas, Aphids, and Scale-insects 209 
The flower-bug family, Capsidae, contains two hundred and fifty known 
North American species, almost all of which, however, are small and incon¬ 
spicuous. They mostly live in pastures, meadows, gardens, and along 
roadsides, on the grasses, weeds, and herbaceous flowering plants of these 
places, but some infest woody plants and a few species do much damage 
to garden and orchard shrubs and trees. A few species are predaceous, 
and Howard has seen one species sucking the eggs of the imported elm-leaf 
beetle, a great pest of our elm-trees. The structural characteristic by which 
they can most readily be distinguished from other bugs is the presence of 
one or two closed cells and no longitudinal veins in the membrane (apical 
half) of each fore wing (Fig. 268). When examined closely many of these 
Fig. 288.—-A flatbug, Aradus cinnamomeus. (After Lugger; enlarged about six times.) 
Fig. 289.—The tarnished plant-bug, Lygus pratensis. (Five times natural size.) 
Fig. 29c.—The four-lined leaf-bug, Pczcilocapsus lineatus; at right, eggs deposited in 
plant-stem. (Figure of insect original, enlarged three and a half times; of eggs, 
after Slingerland, and much enlarged.) 
little bugs will be seen to be elaborately patterned and beautifully colored, 
and their body outline is trim and graceful. They .are active and quick 
to escape from the collecting-net. (The best way to collect them is by sweep¬ 
ing rankly growing herbage with a short-handled stout net.) Among the 
most abundant and wide-spread Capsids of economic importance is the 
tarnished plant-bug, Lygus pratensis (Fig. 289), which attacks many cul¬ 
tivated plants, as the sugar-beet, strawberry, pear-, plum-, apple-, quince-, 
and other fruit-trees. It is about \ inch long, and ranges from dull dark 
brown to yellowish or greenish brown. A yellowish-white V-shaped mark 
on the scutellum is its most characteristic marking. It hibernates in the 
adult stage, under fallen leaves or in any rubbish, and comes out in the spring 
to pierce and suck sap from tender buds and leaves. The four-lined leaf- 
bug, Pcecilocapsus lineatus (Fig. 290), a small bright-yellow bug with head 
