576 



HEMIPTERA-HOMOPTERA 



CHAP. 



The wax of Fulgorids is used by the Chinese for candles and 

 other purposes ; and this white Insect-wax is said to be much 

 esteemed in India. Very curious chemical substances have been 

 obtained from it, but its importance in the economy of the 

 Insects that produce it is quite obscure. We have about seventy 

 species of Fulgoridae in Britain. They belong to the sub-families 

 Tettigometrides, Issides, Cixiides, and Delphacides, which by 

 many authors are treated as separate families. The exotic sub- 

 family Flatides is highly peculiar. In some of its members the 

 head is very different from that of the ordinary forms, being 

 narrow, and the vertex and front forming a continuous curve. 

 Some of these Insects are remarkably like butterflies or moths 

 (e.y. the African Ityraea nigrocincta and the species of the genus 

 Pochazia), but the young are totally unlike the old, the posterior 

 part of the body bearing a large bush of curled, waxy projections, 

 several times the size of the rest of the body. 



Fam. 3. Membracidae. Prothorax prolonged backwards into 

 a hood or processes of diverse forms ; antennae inserted in front of 

 the eyes ; ocelli two, placed between the two eyes. This family is of 



FIG. 283. A, B, Heferonotus trinodosus. A, Male seen from above ; B, profile of 

 female ; , terminal part of pronotum ; b, terminal part of abdomen : C, front 

 view of head and pronotum of Cyphonia clavata. Both species from Central 

 America. (From Biul. Centr. Amer. Rhynch. Homopt. II.) 



large extent but its members are chiefly tropical, and are specially 

 abundant in America. Although not of large size the Membracidae 

 are unsurpassed for the variety and grotesqueness of their shapes, 

 due to the unusual development of the pronotum. We figure two 

 of these forms (Fig. 283). 1 Very little is known about their 



1 A considerable variety of these extraordinary creatures are figured in Biol. 

 Centr. Amer. Bhyncti. Homupf. ii. 



