BIOLOGIA CENTRALI-AMERICANA. 
ZOOLOGIA. 
Class INSECTA. 
Order RHYNCHOTA. 
Suborder HEMIPTERA-HOMOPTERA (continued). 
Fam. MEMBRACIDA"*. 
Membracides, Germar, Mag. der Ent. iv. p. 7 (1821). 
Membracide, Curtis, Brit. Ent. xii, Gen. p. 14 (1840). 
Jassida (ex parte), Stal, Hem. Afr. iv. p. 82 (1866). 
The members of this family are chiefly distinguished by the great development of 
the pronotum, which in many cases completely covers the whole body and occasionally 
the tegmina as well, and in most of the genera is much enlarged and conceals the 
scutellum. In the Centrotine, however, the extension of the pronotum does not 
conceal the scutellum, which is left more or less exposed, and in some genera the 
posterior process is diminished to a mere elongated point, while in a few the posterior 
process is entirely wanting ; these may, as a rule, be known by having the metopidium f, | 
or front part of the pronotum, strongly and more or less perpendicularly declivous ; in 
the genus ithalion, however, there is no posterior process of the pronotum, nor is the 
metopidium strongly declivous, but the position of this genus is very doubtful. 
Stal regards his ‘“ Membracida” as merely a subfamily of the Jasside, yet, in spite 
of this, he classes Ai¢halion and other doubtful genera among the Centrotide; in 
any case, however, the wisdom of this arrangement appears to be doubtful, for the 
Membracide, as a whole, form one of the most distinct and unmistakable groups of 
all insects. 
* By W. W. Fow.zr. 
+ I have used this term throughout to express the declivous part of the pronotum reaching from the base 
of the head to the front of the dorsum. 
BIOL, CENTR.-AMER., Rhynch. Homop., Vol, II., July 1894. 
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