cciv FAUNA HAWAIIENSIS 



Hemiptera-Homoptera. 



The Hemiptera-Homoptera of the Fulgoroid and Jassoid superfamilies are no 

 doubt more numerous in species than the Heteroptera, owing to the fact that several 

 of the genera have evolved great numbers of allied species, of highly specialized habits, 

 in so far that they are restricted, many of them, to a single food-plant, and can only live 

 in those stations, where these special food-plants flourish. Moreover on different islands, 

 even when living on a similar food-plant, the species may be quite different. In the 

 present state of our knowledge we can say that the vast majority of the known species 

 have so far been obtained only from one kind of plant, but that a few are able to live 

 on quite different kinds of trees. Nearly all are attached either to trees or shrubs or to 

 various species of ferns, and the fauna contrasts most strongly with others, where there 

 is usually such a varied assembly of forms frequenting grasses, sedges, etc. 



It is interesting to compare the components of these Homopterous groups with 

 those given already in the Heteroptera, excluding in each case such forms as are either 

 known to be foreign or are likely to prove so. Only Nysius, Rcduviolus (s.l.) and 

 Orthotylus can be compared with the more extensive genera of the Fulgoroids and 

 Jassoids as successful producers of species, and only a few of the Nysius and a few 

 species of Capsids, as equally successful producers of individuals. 



PoEKiLLOPTERiDAE. — A single species representing this family, Siphanta acuta, is 

 of recent introduction, having appeared first about 15 years ago. It is a common 

 Australian insect. By 1900 it had become so extremely numerous, that in some of the 

 forests on Oahu it was actually destroying large numbers of certain native trees, besides 

 being injurious to coffee and other cultivated plants. A Proctotrupoid egg-parasite 

 iyAplianomcTus pusilhis), introduced by Koebele and myself in 1904, has done excellent 

 service in many localities in diminishing the numbers of this pest. In wet districts it 

 frequently is destroyed by a parasitic fungus. 



FuLGORiDAE. — This family is represented by only two genera, and one of these, 

 lo/anta, which is endemic, contains but a single species. It is very variable in markings 

 and intensity of colour, and is partial to ferns, on the trunks of which it may be 

 frequently seen resting. 



The other genus, Oliants, contains a score of species, some of which are quite 

 conspicuous and striking insects amongst their congeners. Many of the species are 

 variable in colour and markings, considerable variability being exhibited by examples 

 of a species taken in the same locality, and there is evidently further variation due to 

 different local influences. In addition to general variation, there is in many species 

 striking sexual dichromatism, so that the one sex of a species may sometimes bear a 

 greater superficial resemblance to another species than it does to its own partner. 



