576 



HEMIPTERA-HOMOPTERA 



The wax of Fiilgorids is used by the Chinese for caudles aud 

 other purposes ; aud this white lusect-wax is said to be much 

 esteemed iu India. Very curious chemical substances have been 

 obtained from it, but its importance iu the economy of the 

 Insects that prodvice it is quite obscure. We have about seventy 

 species of Fulgoridae in Britain. They belong to the sub-families 

 Tettigometrides, Issides, Cixiides, and Delphacides, which by 

 many authors are treated as separate families. The exotic sub- 

 family Flatides is highly peculiar. In some of its members the 

 head is very different from that of the ordinary forms, being 

 narrow, and the vertex and front forming a continuou.s curve. 

 Some of these Insects are remarkably like butterflies or moths 

 (r.//. the African Ityraea nigrocincta and the species of the genus 

 Fochazia), but the young are totally unlike the old, tlie posterior 

 part of the body bearing a large bush of curled, waxy projections, 

 several times the size of the rest of the body. 



Fam. 3. Membracidae. — Prothorax 2))'oIo7iged backwards into 

 a hood or processes of diverse forms ; antennae inserted in front of 

 the eyes ; ocelli ttvo, placed between the two eyes. — This family is of 



Fig. 283. — A, B, Heteronotus trinodosus. A, Male seen from above ; B, profile of 

 female ; a, terminal part of prouotuni ; h, terminal part of abdomen : C, front 

 view of head and pronotuni of Cyphonia clavata. Both species from Central 

 America. (From Biol. Centr. Amer. Rhynch. Homopt. II.) 



large extent but its members are chiefly tropical, and are specially 

 abundant in America. Although not of large size the Membracidae 

 are unsurpassed for the variety and grotesqueness of their shapes, 

 due to the unusual development of the pronotuni. We figure two 

 of these forms (Fig. 283).^ Very little is known about their 



^ A considerable variety of these extraordinary creatures are figured iu BioL 

 Centr. Amer. Rhynch. Homopt. ii. 



