| OCR Text |
Show 168 PROF. P. R. UHLER ON THE [Mar. 6, these are widely distributed in the Antilles, Mexico, Central America, and the Isthmus of Panama. The CAPSIDJE are represented by 18 species, all but one of which have been found in the Antilles, Mexico, Central America, and the southern United States. The COREIDJE are represented by 17 species, a very few of which are of large size, while most of them are widely distributed, occurring from the Gulf States to the northern borders of South America. In the ANTHOcoRiDiE w e find a few genera and a total of 14 species. Those which are not new belong to forms peculiar to the Gulf States, Mexico, Central America, and the Greater Antilles. As these little creatures live much in concealment, amid tangled vegetation and decaying leaves, and upon twigs, fungi, and mosses, their distribution is but little restricted, and they extend over large parts of the continental areas. In the C E R A X O C O M B I D ^ ; w e meet with only 5 species, and these are of the widely distributed forms which spread north from tbe region of Brazil-Ptenidiophyes mirabilis, Beuter, being the only one of these not yet found in the corresponding island of St. Vincent. The collecting of these minute insects has been so generally neglected that the time has not yet come for adequate comparative statements to be made relative to tbe genera and species belonging to different localities ; but the assemblage from St. Vincent, as now known, is more varied and comprehensive than that of Grenada. Four of the widely distributed species occur in both islands, while the four other peculiar forms were found in St. Vincent and not in Grenada. It is very unlikely that these types are confined to St. Vincent, and we confidently expect to see them discovered when the minute insects of Grenada shall have been more exhaustively collected. The fauna of the littoral plain of the southern United States includes several genera and species not yet discovered in the West Indies, but it also embraces two or three species, particularly in the genera Ceratocombus and Cryptostemma, which have an extensive distribution in the central regions of America. Turning to the VELIID^E, we find them comparatively well represented by fourteen species, rich in individuals. They exhibit some interesting modifications of structure. The elongation of the legs in one species of Microvelia points to a closer relationship than has hitherto been indicated between this group and that of the Hydrobatidae. A genuine salt-water species, Rhagovelia plumbea, which also lives on the ocean about the Florida Keys and on the coasts of Southern Florida, adds new interest to this peculiar group of insects. This species is also noteworthy from the fact that the sexes unite sexually in what would appear to be a larval stage-the male being usually not more than one-half the bulk of the female, and both being of weak integumentary structure, and destitute of rudimentary wing-segments in the greater number of specimens. No specimens with wing-covers have yet been brought to notice. |
