A REVISION OF SOME SPECIES OF NOCTUIDiE HERE- 

 TOFORE REFERRED TO THE GENUS HOMOPTERA 

 BOISDUVAL. 



By John B. Smith, 

 Of Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey. 



The species of Homoptera Boisduval, as they have been listed in 

 our fauna, are typified by the most common and best known of our 

 species, lunata, or edusa, as it has been indifferently known. As based 

 on that species the genus has naked, hemispherical eves, a smooth 

 moderately convex front clothed with scaly vestiture, which is di- 

 vergent, not smooth nor closely applied. The antenna 1 are long, a 

 little thicker in the male, in which the joints are also a little marked 

 and furnished with lateral cilia 4 . The tongue is well developed and 

 functional. The palpi are long, curved obliquely upward, closely 

 scaled, third joint almost as long as the second but more slender, more 

 closely scaled and usually truncate at tip. There is a little difference 

 in the sexes and more between the different species; but on the whole 

 the general character of the palpal structure is distinctive and much 

 the same throughout. 



The thorax is not large in proportion to the size of the insects, 

 quadrate or nearly so, the vestiture consisting of long flattened hair 

 with broader scales intermixed, thick but smoothly applied. The col- 

 lar is round and closely applied. Patagia always well marked and 

 sometimes conspicuously developed. They may be flattened and 

 divergent into wing-like structures posteriorly, or they may be up- 

 lifted so as to form a brush-like mass; but they are always at least 

 well marked and divergent. Between the patagia there is usually a 

 posterior tuft which is generally truncated behind and may overhang 

 the basal segment of the abdomen. The abdomen is cylindrical, stout, 

 extending to or exceeding anal angle of secondaries: closely scaled, 

 with a variably developed series of dorsal tufts. Usually there is a 

 broad tuft on the basal segment, supplementing that on the thorax 

 and like it cut off square behind ; the others are as a rule little upright 

 scale masses that are easily removed and are rarely complete in cap- 

 tured specimens. Not infrequently one or the other of these dorsal 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. XXXIV— No. 1645. 

 Proc. N. M. vol. xxxv— OS 14 



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