Introduction 
v 
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 
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. Incidentally, 
I am pleased to note an increase in the method of literature citations devel¬ 
oped 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 phylogenetic order 
as our present knowledge will permit. The species are arranged under the 
genera in alphabetic sequence. Titles of books are not abbreviated but are 
condensed if they are unduly long. The abbreviations of journal references 
follow in general the scheme proposed in the World List of Scientific Peri - 
odicals 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 abbre¬ 
viations 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 abbreviation of the journal is followed by a series 
number or by such an abbreviation 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 
