BUGS. 231 



slender, up-curved stylet projecting from the front of the head. Its eyes are 

 brown ; there is a blackish stripe each side of the face, a few spots of the same color 

 appear on the front of the thorax, and the veins of the wing- 

 covers are often margined and spotted with brown. The legs 

 are long, the hind-shanks are armed exteriorly with a row of 

 acute spines, and at tip with a crown of stout teeth, which greatly 

 assist the creature in starting to leap. It occurs pretty generally 

 throughout the United States, being found in various places west 

 of the Rocky Mountains in Washington Territory, Oregon, and 

 Nevada, and continues south into Arizona, New Mexico, and 

 Texas. On the eastern side of the continent it is found from FIG. 305. Scoiops sui- 



cipes. 



Canada to southern Florida. 



A related but still more singular genus is Phylloscelis. It was founded by Prof. 

 Germar upon two small, blunt-headed, oval species, having the fore-thighs expanded 

 into flat plates ; based, however, upon only the form with incomplete wing-covers 

 and arrested development. As usually seen, they have a thick, crustaceous integu- 

 ment, with the wing-covers correspondingly thick, lacking all indications of a mem- 

 branous tip ; but in the completed form the membrane is distinct. They have a 

 narrow, vertical face, with very large, round eyes overlapping the prothorax, and long 

 hind-shanks, built for leaping. 



One species, P. atra, is either all over black, polished, sometimes marked with 

 orange ; or it is orange, marked with black on the wing-covers. Its fore-tibiae have 

 two white spots, the other tibia? are more or less striped with white, and it has but a 

 few remote veins in the wing-covers. The other species, P. pallescens, is of a dull 

 gray color, more or less speckled with white and black ; the face is ribbed, and the 

 raised lines flecked in series ; while the fore-thighs are black, dotted and thrice spotted 

 with white, and the tibia?, except the hinder pair, crossed by a pale streak or spot. 

 They are both of small size, measuring only one-fifth of an inch in length ; and inhabit 

 the United States from Massachusetts to Florida, and extend west to the great plains 

 and south to the borders of Mexico. 



Both forms live in weedy places, amidst herbage and vines along the edges of woods, 

 in low grounds. The latter species approaches nearer to Scoiops in the numerous 

 veins and cross-veins of the wing-covers. 



This group is represented in Europe by only a few forms allied to Nersia, such as 

 the pale green Dictyopliara europcea and D. pannonica, which inhabit chiefly the 

 more southern countries. The foregoing remarks give but a very inadequate idea of 

 this large sub-family, which is marked by many strange genera and species in all the 

 tropical and sub-tropical regions. 



The sub-family Tropiduchida is composed of numerous genera and species, belong- 

 ing chiefly to the sub-tropical or tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and America. It is 

 represented in Florida, Texas, and the West Indies by clear winged forms, generally 

 of a green, or straw-yellow color, closely resembling Nersia in nearly all but the shape 

 of the head. The wing-covers are long and narrow, gradually widening at tip, and 

 bluntly rounded. The head is oblong, pentangular, with the edges raised, and gene- 

 rally a keeled line along the middle which ends behind in a notch ; and the hind-margin 

 of the prothorax is deeply, acutely emarginated and keeled, while the mesothorax has 

 three slender keels. 



In Tangia sponsa, a pale green insect, with milky, transparent wing-covers, the 



