CICADELLINAE : PART I. PROCONIINI 15 



Subfamily CICADELLINAE 



Apparently the first use of a higher category name based on 

 Cicadella Latreille was that of Latreille (1825a), but the family (and of 

 course the nominate subfamily) name used since 1825 by various 

 authors has been inconsistent. Signoret (see p. 7), in his monograph of 

 the subfamily, referred to the higher category as "Tettigonides," 

 presumably based on Tetigonia Geoffroy, 1762. "Tettigonides" dates to 

 Amyot and Serville, 1843. "Tettigonides" was finally suppressed by 

 the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature (Opinion 

 647, 1963). 



Another group of authors used "Cicadellidae," based on Latreille 

 (1817b) as a higher category name, but a cloud of uncertainty came 

 over this usage with the discovery that Dumeril (1806a) had used the 

 name Cicadella for a genus now in the Typhlocybinae. A substitute name 

 for Cicadella Latreille (not Dumeril), Tettigella China and Fennah 

 (1945a), was proposed and tlie higher category names Tettigellidae 

 and Tettigellinae were based on this. The Liternational Commission 

 (op. cit.) achieved stability by suppressing Cicadella Dumeril and 

 Tettigella China and Fennah and by placing Cicadella Latreille, 1817, 

 on the Official List of Generic Names in Zoology, under the plenary 

 powers. 



The leafhoppers have recently been treated as a superfamily by a 

 number of authors, including Dr. Z. P. Metcalf whose excellent cata- 

 logues of this group are still partly in press. I do not accept this usage 

 for two reasons. First, the elevation of the subfamilies to family level 

 does not maintain a good perspective in the auchenorrhynchous 

 Homoptera; the size of the gaps between most of the families of the Ful- 

 goroidea and those which separate the so-called families of leafhoppers 

 are not similar. Second, it is held that families form a part of the culture 

 of the general zoologist, and that their wanton creation does a disservice 

 to the stability of that culture. Eventually (after considerably more is 

 known about the lower taxa) it may be desirable to elevate some of the 

 subfamilies to family status, but it is much better to postpone this 

 until the subfamilies acquire a degree of stability they do not now 

 possess. A pertinent example is to be found in the treatment of the 

 Makilingini (see below). In this regard, it is here submitted that the 

 interrelationships of the Nirvaninae, Cicadellinae, and Typhlocybinae 

 are much closer than is the relationship of the Xestocephalinae to their 

 nearest relatives. 



The subfamily Cicadellinae is very large and diverse, hence difficult 

 to characterize. It contains leafhoppers ranging from very large (22 

 mm.) in size to almost as small as the larger Typhlocybinae, a sub- 



