.);inu;ny, 1S:G ] 109 



to be a Bcarcc species on the Continent, nnd was described by StRl in 

 the Forhandlingar, 1817, 174, 1, under the name of Athysanus oh- 

 tusifrons. 



Two other representatives of this genus were forwarded by Mr. 

 Douglas to Dr. J. Sahlberg for identification, who returned one of 

 them as A. distinr/uendus, Kirschb., without doubt, and the other 

 as perhaps A. convexus, Kirschb. I have hesitated to describe these 

 species, although I see no reason why they should not be found 

 in England, for the following reasons, tIz. : — Kirschbaum places his 

 distinguendus in a group of which he makes 2}lebems, Fall., his type, 

 having milk-white patches, especially upon the transverse nerves, of 

 the elytra, aud as I fail to detect these patches, although Kirschbaum 

 says they are less distinct than in the typical insect, I at present be- 

 lieve this to be only a form of A. ohscurellus. The other, ? A. convexus, 

 appears to me to approach pJeheiiis more than the division of which 

 ohsoletus, Kirschb., is the representative, and there being only a ? which 

 does not bear out the description of the author, it is perhaps wiser to 

 wait until we see further. The extraordinary amount of variation in 

 colour in the whole of the species of Homoptera renders them extremely 

 dillicult to deal with, and perhaps the climax is attained in lassus, 

 Thamnotettix, Athysanus, and Deltocephaliis. 



Genus ALLYGUS, Fieber, ined. 

 The name for this new genus was proposed by Fieber, in his Kat. 

 dcr Europ. Cicad. (1872), and, although he may not have left any 

 details of the characters by which he defined it, except perhaps those 

 in his drawings which I have not seen, I think there can be but little 

 doubt that his first idea for separating the species from Athy sanies, 

 auctt., was derived from Burmeister's Gen. Ins., vol. i, on the plate 

 bearing the name lassus (the plates are not numbered, neither is 

 the letter-press paged), and the drawing of the elytron numbered 8 on 

 that plate. There it will be seen that the ordinary ante-apical areas 

 to which we have been accustomed are broken up at irregular intervals 

 into smaller areas by means of transverse nerves. These are perma- 

 nent, and not mere "sports" or freaks, such as are often met with 

 amongst many of the Homoptera, where, in a single insect, the 

 neuration on the one elytron is very different to that on the other. 

 The shape of the insects is also favourable to their removal lure. The 

 head is narrower, and the outline somewhat more boat-shaped ib.an in 

 Athysanus. It is peculiar also that all the species arc reticulated, and 

 have their transverse nerves white. Fieber's Catalogue shews sixteen 



