103 
The Distribution and Island Endemism of Hawaiian 
Delphacidae (Homoptera) with Additional 
Lists of Their Food Plants. 
BY WALTER M. GIFFARD. 
Presented at the meeting of December 1, 1921. 
g 
In presenting the following tables as a guide and check list 
to such as may be interested in this group of our endemic leaf- 
hoppers, the compiler wishes to digress somewhat from the 
introductory remarks which such tables might ordinarily occa- 
sion. Because our endemic leaf-hoppers, like some others else- 
where, do not particularly affect agricultural interests, and 
therefore are of no special economic importance, some may 
wonder why so much interest is taken in their biology and 
morphology by our local entomologists. There are several rea- 
sons for this. J irst, because of several very injurious species 
of hoppers, not so very far from our gates, which as yet have 
not reached Hawaii; and, second, because the sugar cane leaf- 
hopper (Perkinsiella saccharicida), which cost this Territory 
losses of many millions of dollars in 1903, 1904 and subsequent 
years, is, as it were, the foundation-stone of economic entomol- 
ogy in Hawaii. Not only was this Delphacid responsible for 
large money losses, but it was also the cause for organizing in 
1903 of a large staff of entomologists for biological research 
and field work in the Territory, and the building up of such 
organizations as the Experimental Station of the Hawaiian 
Sugar Planters’ Association and the Territorial Board of Agri- 
culture and Forestry and its Plant Quarantine and Inspection 
Department. It is therefore not surprising that the many 
families and groups of leaf-hoppers distributed through both 
continents are of more than passing interest to some of our 
systematic as well as economic workers. ‘I'he systematic study 
of these families or groups, whether local or foreign, is quite 
necessary because, with Hawati as the “Cross Roads of the 
Pacific’ and in almost daily steamship communication with 
many tropical or sub-tropical regions, there is always the pos- 
sibility that one or more of several known species of hoppers 
Proce. Haw. Ent. Soc., V, No. 1, October, 1922. 
