DEFINITION OF THE FLATIN^. 135 



in factj cicadas disguised as butterflies and moths : like 

 these latter, their wings are very broad, obtuse, and, in 

 many genera, covered with minute scales, which appear 

 to the eye like a fine powder. Even in such as have 

 not their wings so covered, this powdery substance is 

 found upon the body, or on other parts : here, however, 

 the resemblance ceases, so far as the structure of the 

 two orders are concerned. The moth cicadas are nearly 

 all confined to the tropics of the Old and New World : 

 their representatives in Britain are the small aberrant 

 genera of Issus Fab., and Cijcius Leach ; these live in 

 thickets, and may be found by beating the hedges in 

 summer. The form of the head, and the position of the 

 antenniE, joined to the shape of the wings just alluded 

 to, offer the best and most prevalent characters for this 

 family. We have seen that the front of the head, in 

 the Cicadidce, is swollen, or at least convex ; but in 

 these insects it is either perfectly flat, as if cut off", or 

 divided into two concave hollows, at the bottom of 

 which, immediately beneath the eye, is placed their very 

 small antennae : the front is also destitute of those fine 

 horizontal lines so prevalent in the first great division 

 (Cicadiadce).* A remarkable exception occurs to the 

 generally truncate shape of the head, in the genus Ful- 

 gora, where this part is lengthened and swollen to an 

 enormous size, more analogous to the snout of an ele- 

 phant, or the horn of a rhinoceros, than any thing else. 

 This structure, however strange, is in strict accordance 

 with one of the most prevalent laws of nature. The 

 FulgorincB, in the circle of the FlatidcB, seems to be 

 the rasorial type in regard to birds, and the thysanuri- 

 form with reference to insects ; both of which, as is 

 well known, are remarkable for the appendages which 

 adorn their heads, which are frequently so strange as to 

 give them the most grotesque appearance. But the 

 analogies of the Fulgora do not rest here : on its lower 



* It may be as well to observe here, that Dr. Leach has mistaken the 

 mode of insertion of the antennie in his genus Cercopis, and has thus made 

 his third stirps both erroneous and artificial 



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