EVOIitTTION OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OP THE BRITISH RHYNCHOTA. 59 



British Coccidae. In 1891, under the able guidance of my ever helpful 

 friend Mr. Douglas, I pul)lisbod the first results of my researches''. 

 Since that time I have continued, chiefly through the same magazine, 

 to publish my observations on this interesting group. In 1885 Mr. 

 Douglas gave a list of twenty species as occurring in the British Isles. 

 To-day we have about 100 species and varieties, many of them 

 aliens, which from their destructiveness of plant-life call for as much, 

 if not more, attention, than our indigenous species. I should here like 

 to add some particulars with regard to the habits of some British 

 Coccidae, but I should by so doing trespass upon my forthcoming work 

 on the Coccidae of the British Idesj:, which I sincerely trust will be the 

 means of enlisting a few more workers in the study of our British 

 species. 



Looking back to the time of Signoret's Kssai in 1876, we find that 

 the total number of Coccids then known to science only reached the 

 modest number of 258, numbers of Avhich were only then described for 

 the first time. Compare these figures with those in Mr. Cockerell's 

 census]: for 1899, and Ave find an increase of 861 species, which to-day 

 will far exceed a thousand species, and, considering that all this recent 

 work has been carried out by a small band of about 30 workers, in 

 various parts of the world, we have some cause to congratulate ourselves 

 on the satisfactory progress the study of this most difficult group has 

 made during the closing years of the nineteenth century. 



* Ent. Mo. Mag., s.s. vol. ii., jjp. 164-166, with a plate. 

 t Ray Society vol. for 1900. 



I " First Supplement to the Check List of the Coccidae " {Bnll. Illin. State 

 Lah., vol. v., 1899). 



Evolution of our present knowledge of the British Rhynchota. 



By G. W. KIKKALDY, F.E.S. 



The revolution in the methods of regarding biological problems, 

 effected during the past forty years, principally through the work of 

 Charles Darwin, has been so complete and its effects so far-reaching, 

 that it is not easy to transport oneself to the opening years of the 

 now-expired century, and occupy the position of an early enquirer into 

 the structure and history of Rhynchota. The British worker of that 

 time would have found a general account scattered through Donovan's 

 Natural Hifitory of British Bisects (16 vols., 1792-1813), in de Geer's 

 Meiiinires pour servir a Vhistoire des Imectcs (7 vols., 1752-78), and in 

 E. L. Geoft'roy's Histoire abrei/ee (vol. i., 1762), and to identify his 

 captures he would probably consult Turton's English compilation 

 (1806) of the works of Linne and Fabricius. A charming account of 

 the Aphidae would be found in the early " pre-Linnean " pages of 

 Reaumur (173-1-42). In some orders of insects, as, for example, the 

 lepidoptera, Ave see an insular and self-contained British school arising 

 and frequently carrying their independence of continental authorities 

 to a disastrous extent. In this order a gradual evolution of systematic 

 work, up to the practical high-Avater mark of Stainton, is observed. 

 In the Rhynchota, and especially the heteroptera, on the other hand, 

 the initiation of systematic Avork (as far as the British fauna is con- 

 cerned) the fixation of that knoAvledge on a sure foundation, and the 

 attainment of almost high-Avater mark, is practically due to the Avork 



