21 o Bugs, Cicadas, Aphids, and Scale-insects 
and under side of body orange-red, and four black stripes on the back, is 
abundant in the east and north, and is known to attack at least fifty dif¬ 
ferent kinds of cultivated plants. It is especially familiar as a currant-pest. 
The eggs are deposited in slits cut lengthwise in plant-stems. The best 
general remedy for these bugs is the jarring of branches of the bushes over a 
dish partly filled with kerosene. Comstock says that the most abundant 
flower-bug in the northeastern states is a small greenish-yellow species with 
two longitudinal black stripes extending from the eyes over the prothorax 
and scutellum. It is long (§ inch) and narrow (y 1 ^ inch), is found in the 
grass in meadows, and its name is Leptoterna dolobrata. The injury done 
by all Capsids is by the sucking of sap through small punctures and prob¬ 
ably also, in some cases, the pouring of poisonous saliva into the plant- 
tissues through the punctures. The attacked leaves or buds wilt, turn yellow, 
and finally wither. One of the beneficial Capsids is the glassy-winged bug, 
Hyaliodes vitripennis , a beautiful small yellowish-white insect with almost 
transparent fore wings, with a dash across the apex of these wings, and pro¬ 
thorax red. It feeds on other insects, and especially on the grape-phyl¬ 
loxera in its leaf-inhabiting form. Lopidea media is an abundant yellowish- 
red and black Capsid which has learned to like human blood. When it 
cannot have blood it is content with the sap of wild gooseberries. 
The family Pyrrhocoridae is a small family of comparatively large and 
stout bugs, often conspicuous by their colors, of which red and black are 
the most usual. They may be recognized by their 
having the membrane (apical half) of the fore wings 
provided with two large basal cells from which 
several branching veins arise (Fig. 268). They are 
commonly known as “redbugs,” and the twenty- 
five species found in our country belong mostly to 
the south and west. The commonest species in 
the north is Largus succinctus (Fig. 291), a rusty 
blackish-brown bug about half an inch long, with 
yellowish or pinkish-orange margins on the front 
two-thirds of the back, and a transverse stripe of 
similar color across the base of the prothorax. The 
Fig. 291.—Redbug, Lar - young are steel-blue with a small bright-red dash on 
pus succinctus. (Twice , , , , , . , 
natural size.) base °* th e abdomen between the backward-pro¬ 
jecting wing-pads. This species ranges from New 
Jersey to California and south into Mexico. The commonest species of 
the southern states, and one of great economic importance, is the red- 
bug or cotton-stainer, Dysdercus suturellus , which does much damage 
by piercing the stems and bolls of the cotton-plant and sucking the juices, 
but does even more damage by staining the cotton in the opening bolls 
