Introduction 
v 
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 journals which publish taxonomic papers 
should not have to pay the cost of publishing the past records and dupli¬ 
cating the synonymy that is already well known. Thus it would be neces¬ 
sary only to record synonymy which has been developed since the pub¬ 
lication of the catalogue. Incidentally, I am pleased to note an increase 
in the method of literature citations 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. Nat. 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. 
FORM OF THE PRESENT CATALOGUE 
This catalogue follows the general form of the present series. The 
family is divided into genera which are arranged in as nearly a phylo¬ 
genetic order as our present knowledge will permit. The species are ar¬ 
ranged under the genera in alphabetic sequence. Titles of books are not 
abbreviated but are condensed if they are unduly long. The abbrevia¬ 
tions of journal references follow in general the scheme proposed in the 
World List of Scientific Periodicals with minor exceptions, the chief 
difference being that the names of countries, states, cities and other 
geographical units are not abbreviated. A few references are listed under 
their titles rather than under the abbreviations of the journals in which 
they were published, because in these cases the titles are usually better 
known than the journals, for example, Van Duzee 1917 Catalogue of 
Hemiptera of American North of Mexico not Techn. Bull. California Agr. 
Exp. Sta. Ent. 2. If the journal has been published in series the abbre¬ 
viation of the journal is followed by a series number or by such an abbre¬ 
viation as n. s. (new series), o. s. (old series), n. f. (neue Folge), or the 
like. This is followed by a note indicating the nature of the reference. 
The notes which follow the references are generally self explanatory, 
but three points may be mentioned here. Such notations as “[described],” 
“[notes],’ “[key],” and the like are intended to be suggestive rather than 
precise or exclusive. The notation “[error]” means not accepted in this 
catalogue. Usually the latest published synonymy is accepted, but not 
always. The other notation “[comparative note]” is used to designate 
those references, often of the greatest taxonomic significance, in which 
two generic, specific or other groups are compared. All references have 
been checked against the original save those marked with an asterisk (*), 
which have been accepted from reliable sources. Every effort has been 
