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A Proposed Classification of the Hemiptera. 



Bv William H. Ashmead. 

 Jacksonville, Fla. 



F()r nearly ten years, the wriier has made the Hemiptera the object 

 of special study, and below is submitted for the consitleration of those 

 interested in these pungent insects, a proposed arrangement of the Divi- 

 sions and Families recognized, in accordance wiih what is conceived to 

 be their natural affinity and natural sequence, based on evolutionary law. 



Whether or not, the arrangement be accepted, it is believed that the 

 student will find the analytical tables useful and valuable. 



It will also be observed that the Pcdiailida;, by some authorities 

 classified with the mites Acarina, are included among the Heteropiera ; 

 although some systematists, while classifjing them as hemipterous, con- 

 sidered them to rank as a suborder under the name Parasitica. 



This arrangement, I have not followed, for the reason they seem to 

 me, to be too closely related, in habits and structure, to the heteropterou.s 

 families Polyctenidce and Cimicidce, to justily their separation. 



In general appearance, too. they so closely resemble — in a remark- 

 able degree — the immature forms in the homopterous family Coccidte. 

 that they' very naturally bridge the chasm separating the Homoptera from 

 the Heieroptera, ?iX\A afford — by placing them at the head of the Heterop- 

 iera, as has been done —the presentation of a natural cc>n.^ecutive sequence 

 of all the hemipterous families 



Before giving the characters for sejiarating the divisions and families 

 of the Hemiptera, it may be advisable to show the position and rank it is 

 believed that this order should occupy in any natural scheme of arrange- 

 ment of the so-called orders of insects, based on evolutionary law. 



I believe that the class Insecta, or those expressions of life classed by 

 Zoologists as such — animals breathing through trachece — is represented 

 to-day by two groups that came into existence in two distinct ways, being 

 evolved, the one from the Crustacea, the other froin the Vermes, which 

 may be disdnguished by the following very simple character : 



Insects with antenna; Cerata m 



Insects without antennte Acerata in 



The first group, or Cerata, originated from a crustacean ancestor 

 and is represented to-day by the Myriapoda, Thysanura, Orthoptera. 

 Neuroptera, Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Diptera, and Hytnemp- 

 tera ; while, the second group or Acerata, evolved from an ancestral 

 worm-like form, is represented by the Z///_^'-/w/«/?'«c7, Tardigrada, A carina, 

 Pedipalpi and Arachnida. 



