INTRODUCTION. 
Tuts volume is devoted to the description and enumeration of five Families belonging 
to the Heteropterous portion of the Order Rhynchota, viz. the Pentatomide, Coreide, 
Lygeide, Pyrrhocoride, and Capside, as found in Central America. 
Aided principally by the collections made so exhaustively by Mr. Champion in 
Guatemala and the State of Panama, and by Mr. H. H. Smith in Mexico, supplemented 
by the collections of many other naturalists, I have been able ,to study a wealth of 
material illustrating a restricted fauna such as is very seldom amassed, and has doubtless 
never been surpassed. We possess no complete account of the Rhynchota of any portion 
of Tropical South America, and for purposes of comparison are limited to two faunistic 
works, which fortunately, however, refer to regions both north and south of our area. 
These are the ‘Check-List of the Hemiptera-Heteroptera of North America,’ by Prof. 
Uhler, published in 1886, from which I eliminate the Mexican and Antillean species 
included by that author, and the ‘ Hemiptera Argentina’ of Prof. Berg, 1879-84. Other 
papers exist relating to different regions of South America—notably that of Stal on 
the Hemiptera of Rio Janeiro,—but these are of a more or less fragmentary character, 
aud the only moderately complete catalogues which can be used for statistical reference 
and comparison are those of Berg and Uhler. Additional genera and species have been 
more recently described from both the regions studied by those entomologists, but I 
have not gone beyond their work and dates. 
Penratomipa.—This family of Heteroptera, mostly containing large and handsome 
species, readily observed and not difficult of capture, has long been a favourite one 
with collectors and much studied by students of the Order. We may therefore, with 
some confidence, accept our own enumeration as fairly representative of Central 
America, and also rely on the approximate completeness of the lists given by Berg 
and Uhler. Our region is at once seen to be very rich in Pentatomide, as I have 
enumerated 104 genera and 377 species, as against 07 genera and 149 species given 
for America north of Mexico, and 41 genera and 105 species recorded in the Argentine 
fauna. When our 104 genera are analysed—for our knowledge of the distribution of 
