458 JIESOZOIC INSECTS OF QUEENSLAND, ix., 



The importance of this wing in the study of Odonate phylogeny seems to 

 me to be so great that it is essential that all doubtful points in the restoration 

 of the wing should be fully emphasized. 



Type, Specimen 290ai (reverse), in Coll. Queensland Geol. Survey, Bris- 

 bane. 



Horizon, Upper Triassic, Ipswich, Q. 



Order HEMIPTERA. 

 Suborder Homoptera. 



Since the publication of Nos. 7 and 8 of this series of papers, a considerable 

 number of tegmina have been sent to me from the Ipswich fossil beds. It is 

 now apparent that, next to the Coleoptera, the Homoptera were the dominant 

 Order in the Upper Trias of Ipswich. We now know enough to attempt a 

 review of the whole position of the Suborder at that period; the difficulty is not 

 so much lack of knowledge of the Triassic forms, as the still fluctuating and 

 uncertain schemes of classification of recent Auchenorrhyncha, particularly in the 

 Superfamily Fulgoroidea. Mr. F. Muir, the -well-known authority on these in- 

 sects, has recently taken considerable interest in the fossil discoveries at Belmont 

 and Ipswich; and he writes to me that, in his opinion, the Suborder Palaeohemi- 

 ptera of Handlirsch does not exist, as the two genera still included in it {Prosbole 

 Handl. and Mitchelloneura Till.) may reasonably be considered as archaic Ful- 

 goroids of the family Tropiduchidae, the connection being furnished by the evi- 

 dence of the venation of the South American genus Alcestis.' Accepting this 

 view, it becomes evident at once that the tegmina placed in this paper under the 

 genus Mesodiphthera are even more typically Tropiduchid than those already 

 mentioned. I therefore have no hesitation in removing them from the Scytinop- 

 teridae and placing them in the Tropiduchidae. Mr. Muir is also of opinion that 

 the forms placed by me in the subfamily Mesocixiinae of the Scytinopteridae are 

 true Cixiidae, a conclusion which seems reasonable when we consider that this 

 family stands morphologically at the very root of the Fulgoroidea. I shall there- 

 fore remove the genera Mesocixius Till., Triassocixms Till, and Mesocixiodes, n.g. 

 to the family Cixiidae. The Ipsvieiidae may also be considered to be a specia- 

 lised family of Fulgoroidea, and are almost the only Triassic forms in which the 

 evolution of the anal Y-vein on the clavus can be seen to have beg-un. 



This leaves in the Scytinopteridae the Upper Triassic genera Mesoscytiiia 

 Till., Triassoscarta Till, and ChiUocycla Till. To these will be here added the 

 two new genera Apheloscyta and Polyeytella, the former allied to Scytinoptera 

 Handl. and the latter to ChiUocycla. It is possible that the two genera Chilio- 

 cycla and Polyeytella may prove to be Membracids of a primitive type; but until 

 we can discover the clavus of ChiUocycla, so as to determine the course of lA, it 

 will be best to leave them in the Scytinopteridae. 



The other families of Auchenorrhyncha represented in the Upper Triassic 

 of Ipswich are the Mesogereonidae, ancestral to the Cicadidae, and the Cicadel- 

 lidae or Jassidae. No further examples of these are dealt with in this paper. 



Family SCYTINOPTERIDAE. 



Genus Apheloscyta, n.g. (Plate liii., fig. 33 ; Text-fig. 78.) 



Allied to Scytinoptera Handl. from the Upper Permian of Russia, but 

 diffei-ing from it in having Rs coming off from R quite close to the apex of the 

 wing, whereas Rs arises about half-way ajong R in Scytinoptera. Vein M, which 



