208 CONNECTICUT GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY. [Bull. 



plants' juices by the almost microscopic mouth-setae that is so 

 deleterious ; it is the addition of the horde of fungus spores which 

 often subsequently attack the wounded surface and quickly multi- 

 plying penetrate into the tissues of the plant causing decay and 

 death." The foregoing quotation from a paper (1906) by Mr. 

 G. W. Kirkaldy forcibly emphasizes the extremes attendant to the 

 immediate damage caused by these insects. Professor Herbert 

 Osborn has so adequately covered the economic importance of this 

 family in a recently published (1916) bulletin of the Maine Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station that a more detailed consideration of 

 this phase of the subject is unnecessary here. 



During the prosecution of this work I have employed a large 

 series of specimens personally collected in New England, 

 Tennessee and Ohio. I am under special obligations to several 

 who have assisted me: — to Mr. C. W. Johnson (Curator, Boston 

 Soc. Nat. His.), Dr. E. P. Felt (N. Y. State Entomologist) and 

 Professors H. T. Fernald (Mass. Agri. College) and W. C. 

 O'Kane (N. H. State College) for distribution records from their 

 respective localities, and to Mr. D. M. DeLong (Pa. Bureau Plant 

 Industry) and Professors Z. P. Metcalf (A. M. College, N. C), 

 J. G. Sanders (Pa. Bureau Plant Industry) and C. P. Gillette 

 (Colo. Agri. College) for exchange and loan of material and 

 distribution records. Especially do I wish to express my indebted- 

 ness and appreciation to Professor Herbert Osborn (Ohio State 

 University) for the use of his private collection containing type 

 specimens and extensive distribution records > and for generous 

 suggestions and continual kindly encouragement. 



This family is readily distinguished from the closely allied 

 Homopterous groups, Cicadellidae (Jassoidea) and Fulgoridae, 

 by the structure and arrangement of the spines on the hind tibiae. 

 Here, the cylindrical hind tibiae are armed with two spurs on the 

 outer margin, and, together with the first two joints of the tarsi, 

 terminated with a crescentic row of spines, the third having a bifid 

 claw. In the Cicadellidae, two distinct rows of spines extend the 

 length of the tibiae, and, while some Fulgoridae have similar spurs, 

 the angulate tibiae and the insertion of the antennae below instead 

 of between the eyes insure identification. 



Family characters: Body stout, compact; general form oval or 

 elongate ; f rons usually tumid and convex or compresso-produced, 

 transversely ribbed, dorsally somewhat flattened forming a sub- 

 quadrate insertion (the tylus) in the anterior margin of the vertex 

 from which it is separated by a distinct suture ; vertex sloping, 

 anterior margin rounding or angulate; ocelli two, situated in 

 vertex before base ; antennae short, inserted between eyes and 

 beneath margin of vertex, two basal joints bead-like, the remainder 

 setaceous; pronotum large, sexangular to trapezoidal, anterior 



