On Some Australian Insects of the Family 

 psyllid^e.* 



By W. M, Maskell, Hon. Correspondent. 



[Read December 7, 1897.] 



Plates I.-III. 



The Australasian Psyllidse have not, as far as I am aware, been 

 sufficiently studied. T. Dobson, in the Pap^s and Proceedings 

 of the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land, in 1850, wrote upon 

 the waxy secretion, or " manna," produced by some Tasmanian 

 insects, and gave some figures both of this manna and of adult 

 insects ; but he seems to have known of only three species. I 

 possess some waxy shields corresponding to his figures 3 and 5, 

 but have not their adults ; and it is not possible to make out 

 from his figures 4 and 6 exactly what genera or species are repre- 

 sentv-d by them. Since his time I do not know of any systematic 

 attempt to describe Psyllidte in this part of the world, except my 

 own paper in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, 

 1889, in which I reported four new species, one of which was 

 probably an importation from Australia. Mr. E. Riibsaamen, in 

 the Berlin Entom. Zeitschrift, 1893, has a paper on some galls on 

 Eucalyptus, amongst a number of which he mentions one from 

 Australia which contained a Psyllid pupa ; but no adult was 

 found. I gathered from a letter a few years ago from the late 

 Mr. Olliff that he proposed to form a new genus, ^^Xylolyma," for 

 some of the species which have waxy shields ; but the specimens 

 which I possess of four of these would belong rather to Signoret's 

 proposed genus " Spondyliaspis.'^ Probably, however, the adults 

 of these forms, when found, would not be. separable from the 

 ordinary Psyllid genera, like Asj^halara tecta of the present 

 paper ; and both Spondyliaspis and Xylolyma would be aban- 

 doned. I think that Mr. OllifF never actually published anything 

 on his suggested genus. If any other papers exist on Austral- 

 asian Psyllidse, I have not seen them, nor can I find references 

 to any in the " Zoological Record." But there must be many 

 fine species yet to be discovered in these regions. 



The principal character for generic separation in this family is 

 the venation of the forewing of the adult. In order to illustrate 



* This is a posthumous article, the author having died before receipt of 

 proofs. — [Ed.] 



