HEMIPTERA. 



with numerous long and slender spines, which contribute, 

 like the coronets of the frog-hoppers, to fix their shanks 

 firmly when they are about to leap. The leaf-hoppers have 

 been divided, by Professor Germar and other entomologists, 

 into many genera, according to the structure of their legs, 

 the situation of the eyelets, and the form of the head ; but 

 we may retain them, without inconvenience, in the genus 

 Tettigonia, proposed for them by Geoffroy, or rather adopted 

 from the ancient Greeks, who gave this name to the small 

 kinds of harvest-flies, calling the larger ones Tettix. 



The Tettigonians, or leaf-hoppers, have the head and tho- 

 rax somewhat like those of frog-hoppers, but their bodies 

 are, in general, proportionally longer, not so broad across 

 the middle, and not so much flattened. The head, as seen 

 from above, is broad, and either crescent-shaped, semicir- 

 cular, or even extended forwards in the form of a triangle ; 

 its upper side is more or less flattened, and the face slopes 

 downwards towards the breast at an acute angle with the 

 top of the head. The thorax is wider than long, with the 

 front margin curving forwards, the hind margin transverse, 

 or not extended between the wing-covers, which space is 

 filled by a pretty large triangular scutel or escutcheon. The 

 wing-covers are generally opaque, rather long and narrow, 

 and more or less inclined at the sides of the body, not flat 

 however, but moulded somewhat to the form of the body, 

 and the wings are rather shorter and broader, not netted 

 like those of the tree-hoppers, but strengthened by a few 

 longitudinal veins. The eyes, which are distant from each 

 other, and placed at the sides of the head, are pretty large, 

 but flattish, and not globular as in the Cicadas ; and the 

 eyelets, which are rarely wanting, vary in their situation, 

 being sometimes on the top and sometimes below the front 

 edge of the head. Notwithstanding the small size of most 

 of these insects, they are deserving our attention on account 

 of their beauty, delicacy, and surprising agility, as well as 

 for the injury sustained by vegetation from them. 



