56 



INSECTS OF S4M0A. 



female looks more truly congeneric with the type than do the females placed 

 with the latter in the British Museum. 



Structurally, except in the greater length of the tegmina, this species 

 resembles T. {Cicada) plebeia Scop., with which it may be considered strictly 

 congeneric. It certainly does not fall into any of the segregates— i)^ceroj^;•oc^a 

 Stal, Chremistica Stal, Rihana Distant — which it has been proposed to separate 

 from the genus of which C. jilebeia Scop, is the type. With regard to this genus 

 I cannot accept Horvath's {Ann. Hist. Nat. Mus. Hung., 23, pp. 93-98, 1926) 

 new name Lyristes. The name Tibicen was first proposed in 1825, by Latreille 

 {Fam. nat. Regne Anim., p. 426) with C. plebeia as the only species mentioned. 

 " Tibicen " is not a French word, as Horvath claims, nor is there any excuse for 

 considering it, as Horvath does, a nomen nudum, since C. plebeia, given as its 

 example, is still and w^as then, the best-known cicada in the world. I therefore 

 follow Van Duzee in considering C. plebeia Scop, as the type of the genus Tibicen 

 Latr. (= Cicada auctt. nec Linn.*). This course creates, in the subfamily 

 nomenclature, a difficulty which Van Duzee (Cat. Hemipt. North Anier., pp. 488, 

 498, 1917) has not met by calling the subfamily based on Tibice?i Latr. Tibi- 

 ceninae, and the other, founded on Tibicina Amyot, Tibicininae. Formed 

 correctly from Tibicen and from Tibicina respectively, by adding -inae to the 

 stem, the two subfamily names would be identical. I have therefore followed 

 Handlirsch {in Schroder, Handb. d. Entom., Bd. 3, pp. 1115-1117, 1925) in calling 

 the former subfamily Platypleurinae, after another well-known, old and repre- 

 sentative genus. 



, : ■/ > ■'■- "' Moana.t g- ii- 



Head, including eyes, much narrower than base of mesonotum, head pro- 

 duced conically half its length in front of eyes. Frons elongate, considerably 

 swollen basally, smooth and shining, the cross striae indistinct. Antennal scrobes 

 prominent. Ocelli almost contiguous, the median ocellus directed straight 

 forward. Pronotum apically the widest part of body, basally greatly con- 

 stricted, so that the margins, which are slightly expanded at the apical angles, 

 run very obliquely to the head. Sulci of vertex and pronotum deeply marked. 



* Since C. jAeheia Scop, was not among the originally included species of Cicada Linn. 1758, 

 it obviously cannot be the genotype. The genotype now generally recognised is C. orni Linn. 



■f" Moana — Samoan name for the ocean — thus appropriate for a cicadid genus, endemic in 

 Oceania. 



