Introduction 
v 
gions of North and South America. About two-thirds of the known species 
have been recorded from the Eastern Hemisphere and one-third from the 
Western Hemisphere. In the Eastern Hemisphere a few species are found 
in the Mediterranean Region across Africa to Madagascar, the small is¬ 
lands of the Indian Ocean to India, the Malay Peninsula, Indo-China, 
northward to China, Formosa and Japan; and eastward across the East 
Indies, the Philippines, New Guinea and the Pacific Islands as far east as 
Niue or Savage Island. While members of this family are not known from 
every island of the Pacific, they have been recorded from most of the 
larger islands where more extensive collections have been made and are 
presumably generally distributed. Only three species are known from 
tropical Australia. 
The faunas of Europe, North America, Japan and India are fairly well 
known, but vast regions of the world have hardly been explored. How in¬ 
completely this family is known from many of the regions of the world may 
be surmised from the great increase in our knowledge of this family made 
by the careful surveys of the faunas of Cuba by Bruner and the Lesser 
Antillies by Fennah. 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 gen¬ 
eral we have indicated the distribution as given by the author of the refer¬ 
ence, 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 mor¬ 
phology, physiology, or genetics should be able to trace the development 
in the field of their special interest. And lastly, the student of taxonomy 
should be relieved of the burden of searching for past recordings, and the 
