230 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. XII. 



ture it on the wing are likely to get only a mouthful of 

 the flocculent wax. The large Homoptera are much 

 preyed upon by birds. In April, when the cicada are 

 piping their shrill cry from morning until night, indi- 

 viduals are often seen whose bulky bodies have been 

 bitten off from the thorax by some bird ; and the large 

 and graceful swallow-tailed kite at that time feeds on 

 nothing else. I have seen these kites sweeping round in 

 circles over the tree-tops, and every now and then 

 catching insects off the leaves, so that on shooting them I 

 have found their crops filled with cicadse. 



The frog-hoppers, besides exuding honey in some 

 genera and wax in others, in a third division emit, when 

 in the larvae state, a great quantity of froth, in which 

 they lie concealed, as in the common " cuckoo-spit " of 

 our meadows. 



