316 TERTIARY INSECTS OP NORTH AMERICA. 



species by Woodward) from the European rocks and from amber, while in 

 our own country by far the larger proportion of the Cercopidse belong to 

 this subfamily, and, excepting three species regarded as belonging to Cer- 

 copis, one each from British Columbia, Green River, and Florissant, all are 

 referred to extinct generic types ; these include seventeen species and six 

 genera, one of them, Petrolystra, with two species, gigantic and possibly 

 luminiferous insects, which must have been one of the striking features of 

 Florissant Oligocene entomology ; another, Palecphora, with six species, 

 five of them from Florissant and one from Green River, was the prevailing 

 homopterous type ; Cercopites is known only from Green River ; the 

 remainder, with the exceptions noted, only from Florissant, and one of the 

 prettiest, Prinecphora, was by no means rare. As a whole the aspect of the 

 cercopid fauna was decidedly tropical. 



CERCOPITES gen. nov. (Cercopis, nom. gen.). 



Head relatively small, including the eyes hardly more than half as 

 broad as the thorax, not appressed, but prominent. Thorax more or less 

 hexagonal, much broader than long, the front border transverse or undate, 

 the base truncate; scutellum equiangular. Tegmina large and well rounded, 

 but little more than twice a,s long as broad, with convex costa, the tip 

 slightly narrowed and sharply rounded, the radial and ulnar veins forking- 

 once each with no apparent apical cells, the radial forking scarcely before 

 the middle of the wing, and before forking running at no great distance 

 from and parallel to the margin. 



Two species are known, both from the Wyoming Tertiaries. 



TaMe of the species of Cercopites. 



Smaller species, the wings expanding about eight millimeters ; front margin of thorax straight. 



1. C. umiratilis. 



Larger species, the wings expanding about twenty millimeters; front margin of thorax uudate or 



biconcave ...2. C. calliscens. 



1. Cercopites umbratilis. 

 PI. 7, Fig. 9. 



The single specimen is rather obscurely preserved, showing an upper 

 surface with spread wings. The bod}^ is stout, the abdomen full and 

 rounded ; the front margin of the thorax is straight behind the head, but 



