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XII. Notice of a tube-making Homopterous insect from 

 Ceylon. By Prof. J. 0. Westwood, M.A., F.L.S., 

 Honorary Pres. Ent. Soc. London, &c. 



[Read August 4th, 1886.1 



Plate VIII. 



Amongst the various secretions emitted by different 

 species of insects, such as wax, silk, gums, the oily 

 matter of the Meloe and ladybird, &c., none has attracted 

 more general attention than the white frothy material 

 observed upon almost all kinds of plants in the spring 

 and early summer, known by the common name of 

 " cuckoo-spit," each patch of which is caused by, and 

 forms the residence of, the immature states of a small 

 homopterous insect, Aphrophora spumaria. From the 

 very careful observations and experiments of DeGeer 

 (Mem., iii., p. 168, et seq.), it is clear that the true 

 nature of this secretion was first made known by Poupart 

 in the Memoires of the Academy of Paris in 1705, and 

 that it is no other than the fluid excrement of the 

 larva of this insect, consisting of the juices of the plant 

 on which it subsisted, and which, being discharged, with 

 very little alteration in its nature, drop by drop from the 

 anus of the insect, forms an accumulated moistened 

 mass which keeps the body of the insect in a moist con- 

 dition until it is ready to assume the perfect state. Other 

 instances of the employment of the excrement as a 

 covering of the body of the larvae occur in the Hispidce 

 amongst beetles, whilst the fluid emitted by the 

 bombardier-beetles is so volatile that immediately on 

 coming into contact with the air it explodes. I have 

 now to describe another curious secretion emitted by an 

 insect closely allied to Aphrophora, serving the same 

 purpose as the cuckoo-spit. 



In the course of the autumn of 1885 I received by 

 parcel-post from Ceylon (forwarded by my excellent 

 correspondent, Staniforth Green, Esq., of Colombo) a 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1886. PABT III. (OCT.) 



