182 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



(Cercopididje), which pass their whole lives on plants, on the 

 stems of which their eggs are laid in the autumn. The following 

 summer they are hatched, and the young immediately perforate 

 the bark with their beaks, and begin to imbibe the sap. They 

 take in such quantities of this, that it oozes out of their bodies 

 continually, in the form of little bubbles, which soon completely 

 cover up the insects. They thus remain entirely buried and con- 

 cealed in large masses of foam, until they have completed their 

 final transformation, on which account the names of cuckoo-spittle, 

 frog-spittle, and frog-hoppers have been applied to them. We 

 have several species of these frog-hoppers in Massachusetts, and 

 the spittle, with which they are sheltered from the sun and air, 

 may be seen in great abundance, during the summer, on the stems 

 of our alders and willows. In the perfect state they are not thus 

 protected, but are found on the plants, in the latter part of sum- 

 mer, fully grown and preparing to lay their eggs. In this state 

 they possess the power of leaping in a still more remarkable de- 

 gree than the tree-hoppers ; and, for this purpose, the tips of 

 their hind shanks are surrounded with little spines, and the first 

 two joints of their feet have a similar coronet of spines at their 

 extremities. Their thorax narrows a little behind, and projects 

 somewhat between the bases of the wing-covers ; their bodies are 

 rather short, and their wing-covers are almost horizontal and quite 

 broad across the middle, which, with the shortness of their legs, 

 gives them a squat appearance.* 



The leaf-hoppers (Tettigoniadje) leap almost as well as the 

 spittle-insects just mentioned ; but their hind-legs are longer, are 

 not surrounded with coronets of short spines, but are three sided, 

 and generally fringed on two of their edges with numerous long 

 and slender spines, which contribute, like the coronets of the 

 frog-hoppers, to fix their shanks firmly when they are about to 

 leap. The leaf-hoppers have been divided, by Professor Ger- 

 mar and other entomologists, into many genera, according to the 



* The following species are found in Massachusetts ; namely Ccrcopis igni~ 

 pccta of my Catalogue, and the parallela, quadranguluris, and obtusa, of Say. 

 The last three helong to Germar's genus .-Ipliruji/iora, which means spume-bear- 

 er. Cercopis, which may be translated impostor, was applied by the Greeks to a 

 small Cicada. 



