3 921] Morse — Monecphora Bicincta in New England 27 



MONECPIIORA BICINCTA (SAY) IN NEW ENGLAND. 



By Albert P. Morse, 

 Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass. 



The black frog-hopper or spittle-bug, Monecphora bicincta var. 

 ignipecfa Fitch, is a common insect locally in New England 

 (Wellesley, — A. P. M. ; Dedham and Bridgewater, Mass., and 

 Squam Lake, N. H. — Boston Soe. Nat. Hist.) and I have an 

 example from Harrisbnrg, Pa. From southern New Jersey (t. 

 C. W. Johnson) southward its place is taken by the typical banded 

 form (M. hicincfa), marked by several narrow transverse vermilion 

 stripes, of which the two crossing the elytra are especially notice- 

 able. 



Van Duzee records the species (Cat. Hemipt., p. 509) from six- 

 teen states (Mass. to Iowa, Fla., Tex., also Mex. and W. I.), but 

 does not say which form is referred to. 



During the past summer, while collecting orthoptera in Maine, 

 I found the banded form at Norridgewock (Aug. 19) in the cen- 

 tral western part of the state, and later took the unmarked variety 

 at Naples, Norway, and several points between there and Norridge- 

 wock. Finding that the species was not reported by Prof. Osl)orn 

 in his life-histories of the Cercopidae of Maine, I paid more atten- 

 tion to it thereafter, and secured specimens at various additional 

 points in southwestern Maine, including Gorham, Standish, Lim- 

 ington, Lyman, Sanford, Lebanon and Eliot. All were of the un- 

 marked variety. 



Why the banded form alone should be found at the Norridge- 

 wock locality, and only there (in New England), at the northern 

 limit of the distribution of the species (as far as now known), is 

 as yet an unsolved problem. 



An examination of the material at the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology at Cambridge resulted in finding a single additional ex- 

 ample from New England of the banded form, lal)eled, "Mass., 

 S. Henshaw." Mr. Henshaw tells me that this was doubtless 

 secured in Brookline, Mass., in the early period of his collecting. 



So far as my memory recalls in the past, and certainly from 



