INTRODUCTION cci 



on foreign grasses, occurs everywhere in suitable places, from the coast to 5000 ft. or 

 more on the higher mountains. This will, I think, almost certainly be found outside 

 the islands, though possibly a natural immigrant. Hyalopeplus pelhicidus, so common in 

 the gardens in Honolulu, a doubtfully endemic species, is also ubiquitous in suitable 

 localities, and is chiefly attached either to foreign plants, or at least to such as are not 

 endemic, but it is polyphagous. In Honolulu it is mostly found on the hedges of 

 imported Hibiscus ; on the lower slopes it breeds, often in profusion, on the imported 

 guava ; in the high mountains, at four thousand feet and upwards, it is no less common 

 in all stages on Dodonaea viscosa, a native tree or shrub, that is apodemic. Whether in 

 general the species of Hyalopeplus are variable I am ignorant, but H. pelhicidus exhibits 

 notable variations of a melanochroic character. These appear to be mostly found in 

 wet localities or at high elevations, where specimens for the most part smoky black are 

 found, in some cases at any rate mixed with those of ordinary colour and intermediates. 

 Like Oronomiris, the genus Opuna was formed for a small and obscure Hawaiian insect. 

 It is attached to a species of Sida that is not endemic, and it will probably be found 

 elsewhere. Sulamita is an endemic genus, and forms an endemic division or tribe 

 of the Miridae, several very closely allied species being known. They frequent the 

 endemic forest trees (of various kinds) from 2000 — 5000 ft. The species of Tichorhinus 

 iyOrthotylus^ are numerous, and of universal occurrence throughout the mountain forests 

 of all the islands, and certainly many, and probably all the species are numerous on 

 occasion. They are, however, very frequently extremely unevenly distributed in some 

 forests, so that, while one or more trees of a certain kind may contain many, sometimes 

 in fact hundreds of specimens of a species, other trees of the same kind in the 

 neighbourhood will produce few or none. 



Some of the species are polyphagous and found on very different trees, and can 

 thrive, moreover, at very different altitudes. Thus T. iolani may be found on an 

 endemic Hibiscus on the dry forehills, in some of the wettest low-lying valleys on other 

 native trees, as well as on an apodemic Hibiscus, or yet again above 4000 ft. on the high 

 mountains on other endemic trees. Such extreme cases are, however, exceptional, and 

 some species are, so far as we know, quite constant to a single kind of tree. Thus one 

 of the smallest species, of green and black colour (allied to T. kaiiakanus), is one of the 

 commonest insects that are attached to Pipturus albidus in the mountains round 

 Honolulu. Another minute red species, lives on Cyathodes on the high mountains of 

 Hawaii, in company with the several other Rhynchotal insects, that habitually frequent 

 that plant. 



Some of the species exhibit much variability in colour, and as the structural 

 characters (unless the male genitalia should prove to be of value) appear in general to 

 show very slight specific distinctions, it is not always easy to define the limits of the 

 species. A general variability is exhibited by individuals taken in company, and 

 moreover there is evidently local variability as well. Though small, some of the 



F. H. I. CO 



