94 FAUNA HAWAIIENSIS 



The two most noticeable characteristics of the Hawaiian Rhynchotal Fauna are its 

 extreme poverty, both in species and individuals, and the excessive variability, in 

 structure, pattern and colouring, of the "species." 



Durino- his explorations in the Archipelago for some nine or ten years, Mr Perkins 

 — one of the most acute of collectors — has been able to collect only a few thousand 

 individuals, this representing practically everything he could discover after the closest 

 and most careful investigation. Compared with the spoils of an experienced collector 

 even in England during two or three years, this must be considered as an extremely 

 meacrre total. It is probable that but few additions to the Hawaiian list among pre- 

 cinctive' forms are to be expected, but in Aphididae and Psyllidae there should be 

 a rich harvest, though most probably of recently introduced forms. 



It is a difficult matter to compare the Hawaiian Rhynchotal Fauna with any other. 

 The collections received in Europe from the Australian Continent and from New 

 Zealand and other Pacific Isles, are usually but odds and ends, more or less capriciously 

 picked up by the Lepidopterist and Coleopterist. The predominating forms therefore 

 in such a collection are naturally the larger, often conspicuously coloured, Cimicidae, 

 Reduviidae, Cicadidae, the Lepidopterophanous Fulgoridae and possibly the more weird 

 of the Membracinae. Of the Australian and South Pacific Miridae, Geocorinae and 

 smaller Auchenorrhynchous Homoptera we know almost nothing, while it is these very 

 groups that constitute the basis of the Hawaiian Fauna. In the latter, one medium-sized 

 Cimicid {Occkalia) is, comparatively speaking, fairly abundant. Lygaeidae ( = Coreidae) 

 are represented by the possibly precinctive ItJiamar and a probably imported Rliopalus. 

 Cicadidae and the larger Fulgoridae are absent. The dominant forms are Oliariis, 

 Lasiochilus, Orthotylns, Koanoa, Saroiia, Nysius, and Reduviolus. Specialists in 

 Rhynchota will therefore readily understand that the work upon this Fauna has been 

 extremely difficult, and that extensive comparisons could be made only with palaearctic, 

 occasionally with American, material in most of the groups. An additional difficulty 

 was created by the almost entire absence in this country of any extensive collections 

 of accurately named extra-European Micro- Rhynchota. My studies were materially 

 lightened by the examination of my friend Mr A. L. Montandon's fine collections of 

 Nabinae, Pyrrhocorinae, and exotic Mirinae, which I have been so fortunate as to 

 acquire, but unfortunately even here elucidatory forms are too often represented only 

 by uniques. Until more adequate knowledge of the Polynesian Fauna is at hand, in the 

 shape of long series of the more variable forms, we must postpone the consideration 

 of the problem of the affinities and origin of the Fauna. 



The Hawaiian Fauna is, nevertheless, divisible into two main groups, viz. 

 (i) cosmopolitan and (2) precinctive forms; and also into two further minor groups, 



' "Forms confined to the area under discussion," see Sharp, Fauna Hawaiiensis n. p. 91. 



