SUBFAMILY IV. MOGOPLISTINJE. 663 



usually produced backward into a rounded lobe, its lateral lobes 

 elongate, very narrow; tegmina absent in females, usually abbre- 

 viated, membranous and furnished with tympanum in males; hind 

 femora moderately swollen; hind tibiae serrulate above on both 

 margins, without true spines and with three pairs of subapical 

 spurs; basal joint of hind tarsi with two curved subapical spurs; 

 ovipositor straight, sublanceolate. 



This subfamily has been previously placed as a group or tribe 

 ot the Myrmecophilina?, but the differences in structural charac- 

 ters are so great and the habits so different that I here raise it to 

 subfamily rank. The species are mostly tropical or sub-tropical 

 in distribution and occur for the most part on bushes or beneath 

 debris in sandy localities near water. The principal literature 

 treating of the American species of the subfamily is that of Scud- 

 der, 1868b, IXOTf; Saussure, 1874, 422427, 1877, 4(51 477 ; 

 JU-imer, 1891; Redtenbacher, 1892; R. & H., 1905, 1912a. 



R. & H. in their revision ( 1912a ) recognized 11 genera of their 

 group Mogoplislii, five of which they state to be represented in 

 the United States or Mexico and three in the territory covered by 

 this work. Anyone who compares their characterizations given on 

 pages 193 and 208 of the two genera Cryptoptilum and Cyclopti- 

 luut, will find them word for word exactly the same with the ex- 

 ception that in the proposed new genus Cryptoptilinn the tegmina 

 are said to be "concealed by pronotum in male," whereas in C y clop- 

 til n in the t y are mentioned as "projecting beyond pronotum in 

 male." This and "size small" and "very small" are also the sole 

 characters used in the separation of the two genera in their 

 key, p. 188. As the representatives of the t\vo nominal genera at 

 hand show no other structural differences of generic value what- 

 ever, and as wing length in Orthoptera is no longer regarded as 

 of even specific value, 78 I have placed all the species under the 

 older name Cycloptlluni Scudd. If the projecting tegmina is a 

 character of generic importance in this group, it should also be 

 used in Atlanticus, and A. giltltosits and dorsalis be separated 

 from the other species under a new generic name. Banks (1901V) 

 has well said: "If the characters which distinguish genera are 

 of less value or are less constant than the characters that separate 

 the species, such genera are worthless. They mean nothing. They 

 are of no value to science. Why then accept them?" 



7S As proof of this I need only quote R. & IT. (19150, -'94) as follows: "The work of 

 Lutz has already demonstrated the error of using length of tegmina, wings and oviposi- 

 tor as characters of specific importance in the genus Gryllns. The mass of evidence 

 upon these features in Lutz's paper is absolutely convincing; from studies of other genera 

 we have found such characters to be of minor importance generally throughout the 

 Orthoptera." 



