IV 
Introduction 
have a distribution covering two or more zoogeographic regions. The other 
species are recorded as follows: 3 from the Eastern Palearctic Region, 9 
from the Ethiopian Region, 24 from the Oriental Region, 42 from the 
Malaysian Region, 20 from the Austromalayan Region, 2 from the Aus- 
tralian Region, 2 from the Oceanic Region, and 6 from the Neotropical 
Region. 
The known geographic distribution of each species is indicated by 
superscript figures at the end of the lines, which correspond to geographic 
regions designated by the same superscript figures. In general we have 
indicated the distribution as given by the author of the reference, using 
the country as the smallest unit except in the larger countries, where 
states and provinces are used as the smallest units. In the larger island 
groups the individual islands are indicated wherever possible, in view of 
the importance of island endemism. 
THE PURPOSES TO BE SERVED BY A CATALOGUE OF INSECTS 
A catalogue of animals should serve practically all fields of biology. It 
should be, therefore, as complete a listing of all the records of families, 
subfamilies, tribes, genera, species, and varieties as it is possible for the 
author to assemble. The nature of the reference is of the greatest impor- 
tance. A student of zoogeography should be able to find a complete list of 
the regions inhabited by the various species. The student of ecology should 
be able to find references to all that is known about the life history, food 
plants, and other pertinent data. The student of economic entomology' 
should be able to check the histories of those species that are suspected of 
being injurious to plants. The plant disease specialist should be able to 
check the current nomenclature of the species which are disease vectors 
or suspected of being disease vectors. Those research workers studying 
morphology, physiology, or genetics should be able to trace the develop- 
ment in the field of their special interest. And lastly, the student of tax- 
onomy should be relieved of the burden of searching for past recordings, 
and the journals which publish taxonomic papers should not have to pay 
the cost of publishing the past records and duplicating the synonymy that 
is already well known. Thus it would be necessary only to record synonymy 
which has been developed since the publication of the catalogue. Inci- 
dentally, I am pleased to note an increase in the method of literature cita- 
tions developed in my Bibliography of the Homoptera Auchenorhyncha. 
Thus Smith 1950a: 63 is a better method of citation than the present 
method: Smith, Ann. Mag. Xat. Hist (12) 5: 63. 
Unfortunately this method was not adopted in the earlier numbers of 
this series and since about three-fourths of the catalogues are in manu- 
script, it was not deemed wise to make this change at this time. 
