MEMBRA CIDM. 
3 
CLASSIFICATION. 
Few tilings help forward an enquiring mind more than original research, and if this 
be directed into comparatively untrodden paths, the interest is enhanced. If 
creative or developmental energy has been exerted in any direction, our own intelli¬ 
gence cannot be wasted or misapplied in the investigation of such by-paths, and in 
testing the modes b} r which phenomena are brought about in the evolution of 
minute life. 
Although exact science must deal with the concrete, it seems that prolonged 
experiment finally leads us to the abstract. The horizon widens, but its confines 
nevertheless still remain unknown. Classification brings order out of seeming 
chaos, but it cannot bring to us finality. Classification need not mean explanation, 
and very often does not attempt it, but it may show sequence and proof of 
adaptability. Considering our present ignorance of the life history of Membracis, 
it will be safe at present to classify the family solely on the external anatomy of 
the adult insect. 
From want of material, the important subject of metamorphosis, and the lessons 
it must surely teach, necessarily occupies a very small portion of this treatise. 
Divested of their extraordinary pronotal adjuncts, the bodies of Membracidae 
show nothing very remarkable from those of other Homoptera. The insects may 
be said to be complete as to their general forms without these adjuncts. 
Nature would seem to have been in her playful mood when she contrived and 
adopted these apparently useless additions. They tempt us to ask in what consists 
their aesthetic beauty. But monotony seems to imply poverty of invention; whilst 
variety as a charm is conceded by all, and is to be recognised in the incessant 
evolution and involution of things as we know them. 
As before noted, the Imagoes of the Membracidae form the chief interest in 
their metamorphic changes. The Pronotum is the great obvious character in any 
general review of species. 
The Membracidae, being haustellate or sucking insects, were included by 
Linnaeus in the order Hemiptera, and later by his pupil Fabricius under its 
equivalent Bhynchota. It soon became necessary to break up this group into 
numerous genera, of which modern systematists now recognise more than one 
hundred, even at a low computation. 
