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XIII. Contrihntions to a Kncnvlcdge of the Rliynchota. 

 By W. L. Distant. 



[Reatl Novoinber 21st, 1900.] 



Plate IX. 



I. 



EASTERN CERCOPIDiE. 



Cosmoscarta and Fhi//natostctha are two closely allied 

 genera belonging to the Fam. Gerco'pidiB. In distribution 

 they are Oriental and Australian, being found in and 

 throughout British India, tiie Malay Peninsula, Malayan 

 Archipelago, Northern Australia, and many of the Pacific 

 Islands. They just enter the Pakearctic region in China, 

 but as far as I am aware are absent from Japan. 



Some few years ago, Mr. Doherty, the well-known and 

 accomplisiied collector, made a natural history expedition 

 throughout India, Burma, Tenasserim, the Malay 

 Peninsula, and many islands of the Malayan Archipelago. 

 With few exceptions his Rhynchotal collections passed 

 into my hands, and a very large number of species belong- 

 ing to these two genera have remained — owing to one 

 cause and another — unworked to the present time, the new 

 species being now described. I have at the same time 

 gone over the fine collection in the British Museum, and 

 described the nondescripts which have accumulated there 

 during the last few years. Our national collection of these 

 insects is unsurpassed, its cliief treasures being the large 

 number of species collected by Mr. Wallace in iiis memor- 

 able visit to the Malayan Archipelago, and originally 

 described by the late Mr. Walker under tiie genus Cercopis. 

 Dr. Butler subsec^uently revised this work and re-arranged 

 the species — describing many new ones — under the genera 

 proposed for their reception by Dr. Stal, viz. Cosmoscarta and 

 Phymatostetha. The Museum since that time has received 

 many acquisitions, notably the Indian collection of the late 

 Mr. Atkinson, including the types of the species he had 

 described. Outside our own country, Stal added most 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1900. — PART IV. (l)EC.) 



