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XIV, Notes on some Hemiptera-Horaoptera, icitli de~ 

 scj'iptwns of new species. By W. L. Distant. 



[Read May 1st, 1878.] 



The following descriptions of a few Homopterous insects, 

 belonging to the families Stridulantia and Cercopina, may, 

 perhaps, be best introduced by a few remarks concerning 

 the geographical distribution of the latter. It would, 

 indeed, be difficult to find a better example of the un- 

 certainty of all generic calculations as to geographical 

 distribution than is afforded by the family Cercopina. 



Fabricius included all the Cercopina in the genus 

 Cercopis, which Avould thus exhibit almost a world-wide 

 range. Germar, in 1821, separated this into two great 

 divisions, Cercopis and Aphrophora, with the first of 

 which we will now only deal. In 1839, Burmeister 

 included in Cercopis inserts which were common to Java, 

 Asia, Europe, Central America and Brazil. In 1843, 

 Amyot and Serville restricted Cercopis to insects which, 

 as then known, were common only to Java, China and 

 the islands included in the Australian region, and insti- 

 tuted the genera Tomaspis, Rhinalaiix, Triecphora, 

 Monecphora and Sphenorhina ; the genus Tomaspis 

 being restricted to insects from South and Central 

 America. In 1866, Stal had sank the genera Triec- 

 phora, 3Ionecphora and Sphenorhina, and placed them 

 in the genus Tomasjns, under which he had also de- 

 scribed insects from Africa and the Indian and Malayan 

 region, thus giving the genus a home in the Neotropical, 

 Ethiopian and Oriental regions. In 1870, however, Stal 

 founded his genus Phymatostetha, which included aU the 

 Eastern species of Tomaspis he had described, and so the 

 last-named genus now only includes representatives from 

 the Neotropical and Ethiopian regions. As for the genus 

 'Cercopis, it is now almost lost in the genera Cosmoscarta 

 and Phymatostetha. I think any entomologist who con- 

 siders these facts will acknoAvledge how empirical it is to 

 draw great conclusions in geographical distribution from 

 generic calculations alone. 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. 1878. — PART IT. (.JULY.) 



