THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 389 



THE HEMIPTERA HETEROPTERA IN "AMERICAN 



INSECTS." 



BY J. R. DE LA TORRE BUENO, NEW YORK. 



When I saw Professor Vernon L. Kellogg's new "American Insects " 

 advertised, I determined to possess a copy, which 1 thought would very 

 naturally give a little more space than " Comstock's Manual " to the 

 Heteroptera, and, being a much more recent publication, would be free, 

 with regard to the Waterbugs, from the misstatements and errors of fact 

 of its predecessors and therefore serviceable as a book of reference. Very 

 fortunately (from my point of view), a friendly bookseller allowed me to 

 examine the volume and in consequence I was able to spare myself a use- 

 less expense. To the Heteroptera, Professor Comstock devoted twenty- 

 eight pages when he wrote in 1894; in spite of the great mass of 

 publications since. Professor Kellogg devotes no more than twenty-three 

 pages to the same families. The classification he employs is the same as 

 in Comstock, although the far more scientific one of Schiodte was put 

 forth in 1870 in English and has since been extensively adopted by 

 Hemipterists of repute and by the authors of such general works as 

 "The Cambridge Natural History, Insects" by Dr. Sharp, who is without 

 doubt a competent entomologist. Moreover, in the Waterstriders, the 

 obsolete and wrong Burmeisterian nomenclature is followed closely in the 

 families and genera. We find there '■^Family Hydrobatidce " instead of 

 the correct ^'GerridcB," a.x\d. Genus ^'Hygrot7'echus" in place oi ''Gerris." 

 The familiar (and wrong) '■^LimnobatidcB " appears for '■'Hydrotnetridce" 

 and, of course, ^'■Limnobates " for ''Hydrometra'' But I will say this : 

 Professor Kellogg sins in good company in this respect. Of course, his 

 arrangement of the families is frankly and avowedly conventional, and in 

 the rather unsettled condition of the phylogenetic relations of the 

 Heteroptera is less misleading than the average attempt to express them 

 in a linear order. 



Some few statements and figures call for correction. The entire 

 name ^^Limnobates lineata " is obsolete since 1900, when it was definitely 

 shown to be preoccupied specifically and wrong generically, in The 

 E7itoviologist for that year. On page 198 of his book, Professor Kellogg 

 states " . . . . this species is the only representative of the family found in 

 this country." It might have been better to qualify this statement, since 

 it is likely not only that some Mexican forms occur in the South-west, bui 

 also that new ones may be discovered on both our seaboards. I noted in 



November, 1905. 



