no THE entomologist's RECOED. 



of two men, Douglas and Scott, though revised and corrected lately by 

 Edward Saunders. In the British Isles the study of the Rhynchota has 

 always been sadly neglected ; at the present day, indeed, the number 

 of men who take any real interest in this order — pre-eminent among 

 the Insecta for the marvellous diversity of external structure displayed 

 by its component forms, and the many profound biological problems, 

 such for example as polymorphism in the organs of flight, afforded by 

 many of its families — may certainly be numbered on the fingers of 

 both hands and probably on those of one. 



Up to 1865 there was no complete systematic work on the British 

 heteroptera, while it was not till 1886 that we were in a similar position 

 with regard to the auchenorrhynchous homoptera ; the Aphidae were 

 revised in 1883, the Psyllidae in 1876, and the Cocculae in 1900. 



Let us retrace our steps a little, and briefly run through the 

 principal works of the century. It is a difficult and ungrateful task to 

 discourse upon this progress, the nineteenth having been emphatically 

 the " systematist's century," little else having been done than to 

 marshal the few hundred forms into some sort of order, and it is left 

 to the next to discover and relate their internal structure, their meta- 

 morphoses and their habits. In 1803 Fabricius admitted 45 genera of 

 Ehynchota, of which about 33 contained species now recognised as 

 British, while in 1892 Saunders accepted 174 genera of heteroptera 

 alone, a by no means excessive allowance. In 1818 Leach monographed 

 the 13ritish Notoneetidae (which then included the C(jyi.ddae) and five 

 years later Curtis commenced his Ihitish Kntomoloyji (16 vols., 1823-40) 

 in which a feAV species were delineated with an excellence scarcely 

 surpassed. In 1861 Fieber's Knropidschen Hemiptera, in which an 

 infinity of information is compressed into 444 crowded pages, paved 

 the way for the publication, four years later, of Douglas and Scott's 

 BntifiJi HciiiipU'ra (vol. i., heteroptera). The absence of analytical 

 tables makes it unwieldy and difficult to work with, but the full 

 descriptions and the excellent illustrations mark a new era for British 

 students. Since then work on the heteroptera has consisted simply 

 of minor revision, addition of new species, and the sinking of others 

 too hastily proposed ; in fact there would seem to be little else to do in 

 the systematic treatment of the group. In 1870 the same authors 

 published a Catalor/ue of British BJij/nc/wta, and in 1875, Edward 

 Saunders, now the principal British authority, contributed analytical 

 tables and revised descriptions of the heteroptera (Tranmctions of the 

 Entomolofiical Society of London). The last-named author brought the 

 subject up-to-date in 1892 in a separate work, The Heiiiipteia and 

 Heteroptera of the British Islands (33 plates), and in 1898 Kirkaldy 

 commenced a " Guide to the study of British water bugs " {Entomologist, 

 1898-1901). So much for the heteroptera. 



A large amount of revisional work on various groups of homoptera 

 was effected by Marshall and Scott, but the first monographic account 

 of the Auchenorrhyncha (" Cicadaria ") we owe to James Edwards in 

 1886 (Transactions of the Ento))iolo</ical Society), quickly followed by 

 the volumes de luxe of Buckton {Monoyraph of British Cicadae or 

 Tettiyidae, 2 vols., 1890-1, 82 plates) and Edwards [Hemiptera Homop- 

 tera of the British Isles, 1894-6, 32 plates), the latter being a companion 

 volume to Saunders' Heteroptera. Buckton had previously monographed 

 the Aphidae {Monoyraph of the British Aphides, 4 vols., 1876-83, 147 



