14 COXTRIIJITIOXS TO f'AXADIAX I'AL.KONTOLOGY. 



Family CERCOPIU^E. 



By far tbe greatest niiml)er of the British Columbia fossil Ilomop- 

 tera belong to this family, and notwithstanding that a considerable 

 number (more than twice as many as are recorded below) have been 

 found in the tertiaries of Wyoming and Coloraih) not a single species 

 and hardly a single genus is the same. As in the United States the 

 Cercopinoe are in the majority, but in both the Cercopinse and 

 Aphrophorinaj we are struck by the great size of the insects. More- 

 over, half of the genera have not been found elsewhere, not even in 

 the United States tertiaries. 



Sub-family CERCOPINiE. 



The large number, great variety, and striking size of the Cercopinte 

 are salient features of the tertiary Homoptera of British Columbia. 

 With possibly a single exception, there is not one of them that would 

 not be a striking object in any temperate fauna. Their average length 

 with closed wings could hardly have been less than two centimetres. 

 No less than six genera occur, three of which it is necessary to charac- 

 terize as new ; the others occur in the tertiaries of Colorado and 

 Wyoming. 



Cercopites Scudder. 



Cerco2ntes Scudd., Tert. Ins. N. A., 316 (1-890). 



This genus was established for two species from the Wyoming ter- 

 tiai'ies, varying considerably in size. The one here added is consid- 

 erably larger than either of them. 



Cerecopites torpescens. 



PI. I, fig. 1. 



A single specimen and its reverse shows the dorsal view of an insect 

 in which the tegmina are destroyed or so poorly presei'ved that the 

 veins of the wings show through them. The undate anterior margin 

 of the prothorax determines its place in this genus though it is almost 

 as much larger than the larger of the two species known as that is 

 than the smallest. The head is less than half as broad as the thorax, 

 suborbicular but broader than long. The thorax almost immediately 

 attains its full width, the front margin slightly and angularly emargi- 

 nate in the middle, a point which does not show in the figure. The 

 tegmina are apparently at least three and a half times longer than 



