METCALF: HOMOPTERA AUCHENORHYNCHA 527 



HOMOPTERA AUCHENORHYNCHA 



Z. p. IVIetcalf 

 University of North Carolina^ 



As I contemplate the literature devoted to the suborder Homoptera Aiicheno- 

 rhyncha on file in my laboratory, I am more and more impressed with the prog- 

 ress that has been made durinj? the last century. 



There are in this library about 12,000 different items; all of the books and 

 papers, bulletins and circulars that have been printed about the Homoptera, ex- 

 cept fifty, more or less. These fifty, to which I find some reference in the litera- 

 ture, are not to be found in the great American libraries, nor in any of the great 

 European libraries, so far as I can discover. Many of the earlier works are in 

 Latin, and not a few in Chinese and Japanese, which are, as far as I am con- 

 cerned, knowledge securely locked up. I wish that each of these books and the 

 important papers might pass in review so that the reader might comprehend 

 the history of the science of entomology as it refers to the Homoptera. Here are 

 the great classics of ancient times that tell of the struggle of a beginning science 

 called entomology; also the more recent monographs devoted to single families 

 or even to single genera — the work of a whole host of men deeply interested in 

 our science. What a marvelous tale they have to tell also of far away places 

 and strange faunas! Places about whose people we know very little sometimes 

 contribute the most to our science; the upper reaches of the Congo River, Tan- 

 ganyika, South Africa, Tibet, Java, Sumatra, Celebes, New Guinea, the great 

 interior of Australia, the high mountains of Peru, Ecuador, the upper reaches 

 of that greatest river basin of them all, the Amazon, with its marvelous fauna. 



As I realize that this group has grown, since 1758 when Linneaus described 

 one genus and 42 species, to a group composed of 45 families, about 3,500 genera, 

 and approximately 30,000 species, I am convinced that no one should attempt 

 to understand the suborder as a whole, let alone attempt to describe the progress 

 that has been made over a century of time. 



If history is simply the lengthened shadow of the great men who made it, 

 then in discussing the history of a group of insects one must perforce devote 

 most of his time to a discussion of the men who made that history. In a short 

 paper such as this to cover more than the mere outline of the development of 

 the study of the Homoptera is impossible. 



When we think of progress in a field of biology we perhaps think first of 

 progress in the field of taxonomy because here we have in the number of genera 

 and species discovered a convenient measure of progress. 



For the century beginning with 1850, it is convenient to recognize three periods. 

 Up to about 1850 most of the students of insects were entomologists who studied 

 more than one order of insects. About 1850 the study of entomology began to 

 show a good deal of specialization so that by the beginning of the century 1853- 

 1953 there were a number of students of the group Hemiptera, including both 

 the Heteroptera and the Homoptera. 



1. North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering. 



