NORTH AMERU;AN IIO.MOl'TKKA. 295 



A SYXOI'TIC Al. AIIKA.\G»:.>II<:.\T OF THi: «Ki\KKA OF 



THF IVOKTII AMFKICAIV JAKKIO.K. WITH l>E- 



KCKlPTIOiV!^ OF »$OME MFW «I»ECIFS. 



BY HOWARD P. VAN DUZKl). 



No systematic catalogue of our North Atnerican Honioptera has 

 as yet been published, and each student follows his own convenience 

 in the arrangement of the genera and their division into higher 

 groups. As a contribution to this chaotic condition of affairs I wish 

 here to place before our entomologists an arrangement I have used 

 in my own work and found quite satisfactory. It will be noticed 

 that I have adopted the awkward metiiod of employing a superfamily 

 term equivalent to Futon's family Jassides. My excuse for doing 

 this is primarily that of convenience as the division termed super- 

 family seems to be of greater, and those termed family of less value 

 than the other family groups in this suborder. It is to Fieber that 

 we are indebted for the first thorough systematic arrangement of the 

 genera of the Jassidie, and his work still is, and nnist probably re- 

 main, the basis for future studies in this group. Stal, though our 

 first authority on the Heteroptera and most families of the Honiop- 

 tera, has given us very little assistance in the Jassidae. He seems 

 to have had but little appreciation of the generic characters obtain- 

 ing here, or of the value of those he did indicate. 



The following synopsis of the Jassidse has reference to our North 

 American ftiuna only, and would probably require a farther subdi- 

 vision in (me or two of the tribes in any general view of the family. 

 For exam|)le, Hecalns and its allies should pn)l)al)ly be sejjarated 

 from the Dorydini, which, with Dorydiam and Doryccphalus as 

 typical genera, have a more simple elytral venation. Tribe Jassini 

 should perhaps stand as the first tribe of the Jassina. I have trans- 

 posed the groups represented by Deltocephalus and Cicadnla as the 

 position in which they are ordinarily placed seemed unnatural. The 

 group of genera represented by Seleaocephalus has not yet been i-e- 

 ported from this country ; it appears to l)e particularly characteristic 

 of the Palaearctic region. Four of the genera included in the fol- 

 lowing synopsis are still uid^nown to me in nature, and for the char- 

 acters of these I have de[)ended entirely on the work of Fieber, 



TRANS. AM. ENT. SCO. XIX. DKCEMBEK, 1892. 



