Bugs, Cicadas, Aphids, and Scale-insects 
21 1 
by its reddish-yellow excretions. Howard says that experiments have 
been made with this insect looking towards its use commercially, and that 
the whole substance of the insect can be converted into a rich orange- 
yellow dye which is readily fixed on woolens or silk by the alum mordant 
liquor. The cotton-stainer is a handsome bug, reddish in color with pale 
brown fore wings striped with pale yellow. The young are bright red with 
black legs. Comstock says that this insect also punctures oranges in 
Florida, so that the fruit begins to decay and drops from the tree. The 
insects can be trapped by laying chips of sugar-cane about the cotton-field or 
orange-grove: the bugs will gather about these chips and may be scalded 
to death. 
One of the largest families of true bugs is the Lygaeidae, made notorious 
by a small and obscure representative of it, which, according to the estimate 
of the United States Entomologist, causes our country an annual loss of 
$20,000,000. This insect is the chinch-bug, the 
worst pest of corn, and one of the worst of wheat 
and other small grains. Nearly two hundred species 
of Lygaeids occur in this country, and most of 
them may fairly be called noxious insects. The 
family’s structural characteristic most readily noted 
is the presence of but four or five simple longitudinal 
veins in the membrane (apical half) of the fore wings 
(Fig. 268). The antennae rise rather from the under 
than the upper side of the head, and all of the members 
of the family have ocelli (simple eyes). While most 
of the Lygaeids are small and inconspicuous, a few 
are comparatively large and bright-colored. The 
milkweed-bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus, about J inch 
long, orange above with most of head and prothorax except the margins 
black, and a broad black band across the middle of the fore wings and 
large black blotch on their tips, is a common showy bug on various 
species of milkweed. An odd-looking, long-necked, common member of 
the family is Myodocha serripes. It is about f inch long, with head long 
and narrow, expanding in front, and rising from a bell-shaped prothorax, 
the rest of the body being elongate and narrow. It is black, with the 
margins, sutures, veins, and some spots on the wing-covers yellow. It is 
common in meadows and thin woods, where it keeps half concealed under 
fallen leaves and twigs. In the south a small species, Pamera longula, £ 
inch long, dark brown with lighter brown on prothorax and fore wings, is 
abundant, feeding mostly on meadow plants. 
Among the many smaller species, the chinch-bug, Blissus leucopterus 
(Fig. 293), is the best known and most important. It is found nearly all 
Fig. 292 .—Lygceus turci- 
cus. (After Lugger; 
much enlarged.) 
