BIOLOGIA CENTRALI-AMERICANA. 
ZOOLOGIA. 
Class INSECTA. 
Order RHYNCHOTA. 
Suborder HEMIPTERA-HOMOPTERA. 
Fam. CICADIDA. 
Stridulantes, Latreille, Fam. Nat. du Régne Anim. p. 426 (1825); Amyot & Serville, Hist. des 
Hém. p. 458 (1843). 
Stridulantia, Burmeister, Handb. ii. 1, pp. 102, 170 (1835) ; Stal, Hem. Afr. iv. p. 1 (1866). 
Cicadide, Westwood, Intr. Mod. Class. Ins. ii. p. 420 (1840); Arcan. Entomol. i. p. 91 (1843). 
Cicadarie, Packard (nec Latreille), Guide Stud. Ins. 5th edit. p. 5383 (1876). 
Of this large but at present imperfectly known family, twelve genera and forty- 
seven species are here enumerated as belonging to this fauna, being a considerable 
addition to our knowledge of these insects since Prof. Westwood, writing in 1840, 
alluded to the then best collection, contained in the Berlin Museum, which numbered 
150 species only, seventy of which were from America; and Stal, in his ‘ Hemiptera 
Mexicana’ (1864), referred to not more than thirteen species. 
In the descriptive nomenclature here adopted for the venation of the tegmina I 
have followed Stal, but differ from that author in his use of the term “ scutellum,” 
which, in my opinion, is the “ mesonotum ”—in which I am supported by Burmeister 
and Westwood. ‘The “scutellum,” as used by Germar, apparently equals the “ meta- 
thoracic cross” of Prof. Uhler; it is considered here (in agreement with Burmeister, 
and as may be proved by easy dissection) as part of the mesonotum, and is alluded to by 
me as the basal cruciform elevation of the same. I have also followed Prof. Westwood 
in the numeration of the abdominal segments, of which six are plainly visible—the 
basal one being described as the first, and the apical one as the sixth. 
The “song” of the male insect is clearly of a sexual and of a non-protective character. 
The enemies of these insects are numerous. As regards birds, Belt has described how in 
Nicaragua during “April, when the Cicade are piping their shrill cry from morning until 
BIOL. CENTR.-AMER., Rhynch. Homop., December 1881. *] 
