HEMIPTERA. 183 



structure of their legs, the situation of the eyelets, and the form 

 of the head ; but we may retain them, without inconvenience, in 

 the genus Tettigonia, proposed for them by Geoffroy, or rather 

 adopted from the ancient Greeks, who gave this name to the small 

 kinds of harvest-flies, calling the larger ones Tettix. The Tetti- 

 gonians, or leaf-hoppers, have the head and thorax somewhat like 

 those of frog-hoppers, but their bodies are, in general, proportion- 

 ally longer, not so broad across the middle, and not so much 

 flattened. The head, as seen from above, is broad, and either 

 crescent-shaped, semicircular, or even extended forwards in the 

 form of a triangle ; its upper side is more or less flattened, and 

 the face slopes downwards towards the breast at an acute angle 

 with the top of the head. The thorax is wider than long, with 

 the front margin curving forwards, the hind margin transverse, or 

 not extended between the wing-covers, which space is filled by a 

 pretty large triangular scutel or escutcheon. The wing-covers 

 are generally opake, rather long and narrow, and more or less in- 

 clined at the sides of the body, not flat however, but moulded 

 somewhat to the form of the body, and the wings are rather 

 shorter and broader, not netted like those of the tree-hoppers, but 

 strengthened by a few longitudinal veins. The eyes, which are 

 distant from each other, and placed at the sides of the head, are 

 pretty large, but flattish, and not globular as in the Cicadas ; and 

 the eyelets, which are rarely wanting, vary in their situation, 

 being sometimes on the top and sometimes below the front edge of 

 the head. Notwithstanding the small size of most of these insects, 

 they are deserving our attention on account of their beauty, deli- 

 cacy, and surprising agility, as well as for the injury sustained by 

 vegetation from them ; and these circumstances have induced me 

 to give the characters of this group somewhat in detail, with the 

 view of drawing attention to these insects, and with the hope that 

 other persons may thereby be induced and guided to an investiga- 

 tion of their history. As my own opportunities have been very 

 few, I shall confine myself to an account of only two of these leaf- 

 hoppers. 



It is stated by the late Mr. Fessenden, in the "New American 

 Gardener," that some persons in this country have entirely 

 "abandoned their grape-vines" in consequence of the depreda- 



