IIEMIPTERA. 197 



with numerous long and slender spines, which contribute, like 

 the coronets of the frog-hoppers, to fix their shanks firmly 

 when they are about to leap. The leaf-hoppers have been 

 divided, by Professor Germar and other entomologists, into 

 many genera, according to the structure of their legs, the 

 situation of the eyelets, and the form of the head; but we may 

 retain them, without inconvenience, in the genus Tettigonia^ 

 proposed for them by Geoffroy, or rather adopted from the 

 ancient Greeks, who gave this name to the small kinds of 

 harvest-flies, calling the larger ones Tettix. The Tettigonians, 

 or leaf-hoppers, have the head and thorax somewhat like those 

 of frog-hoppers, but their bodies are, in general, proportionally 

 longer, not so broad across the middle, and not so much flat- 

 tened. The head, as seen from above, is broad, and either 

 crescent-shaped, semicircular, or even extended forwards in the 

 form of a triangle; its upper side is more or less flattened, and 

 the face slopes downwards towards the breast at an acute 

 angle with the top of the head. The thorax is wider than 

 long, with the front margin curving forwards, the hind margin 

 transverse, or not extended between the wing-covers, which 

 space is filled by a pretty large triangular scutel or escutcheon. 

 The wing-covers are generally opake, rather long and narrow, 

 and more or less inclined at the sides of the body, not flat 

 however, but moulded somewhat to the form of the body, and 

 the wings are rather shorter and broader, not netted like those 

 of the tree-hoppers, but strengthened by a few longitudinal 

 veins. The eyes, which are distant from each other, and placed 

 at the sides of the head, are pretty large, but flattish, and not 

 globular as in the Cicadas; and the eyelets, which are rarely 

 wanting, vary in their situation, being sometimes on the top 

 and sometimes below the front edge of the head. Notwith- 

 standing the smaU size of most of these insects, they are 

 deserving our attention on account of their beauty, delicacy, 

 and surprising agility, as well as for the injury sustained by 

 vegetation from them. 



It is stated by the late Mr. Fessendcn, in the " New Ameri- 

 can Gardener," that some persons in this country have entirely 

 "abandoned their grape-vines" in consequence of the depreda- 



