1 894-] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 1 55 



Synonymical Notes on some North American Tettigonidae. 



By E. P. Van Duzee, Buffalo, N. Y. 



Among the numerous species of Tettigonia described by Mr. 

 Walker in his " List of the Homopterous Insects in the British 

 Museum" appear many North American forms from the United 

 States and Canada. Most of these are but redescriptions of spe- ' 

 cies already characterized by earlier authors or by Mr. Walker 

 himself in preceding pages of the same volume. 



Recently, in working over the material in my collection, I have 

 been able to settle, to my satisfaction, the synonymy of a few of 

 his doubtful species, which I will give here with some corrections 

 from other authors that may be of interest to American students 

 of these insects. Most of these species have already been located 

 by Signoret. Stal and others, but some of their corrections were 

 erroneous and must be changed. The following notes will help- 

 to show the utter worthlessness of Walker's descriptive work. 

 Probably no man ever described so many species oi insects in all 

 orders, and certainly no one ever did such careless and unreliable 

 work. 



The following are the species of Tettigonia accredited by Walker 

 to North America with their synonymy. The pages refer to pt. 

 iii of his " List." The numbers prefixed are the serial numbers 

 of the species in his work: 



82. T. rubriguttata p. 763. 



Signoret places this as a synonym of T. sanguinolenta Fabr. ,. 

 which Stal refers to genus Diedrocephala Spin. 

 84. T. teliformiz p. 764. 



This is Diedrocephala coccinea Forst. 

 92. T. prasina p. 768. 



Is our common Diedrocephala novaboracensis Fitch. 

 95. T. herbida p. 769. 



This is Helochara communis Fitch, Walker, in 1852, placed 

 this as a synonym of H. commu7iis, but Signoret the next year 

 separated it as distinct, and placed Walker's next species, similis, 

 as identical with Fitch's communis, thus reversing these forms. 

 Then, in 1858, Walker, evidently not recognizing his own spe- 

 cies, adopted Signoret' s arrangement, which seems to have been 

 followed by all later students. T. similis is, however, a very 

 distinct species inhabiting the West Indies. Helochara comtrnmis,. 



