MEMBRACIDJE. 
5 
the evolution of organs which rise into existence through the exigencies of the 
surroundings of the insects. The first might be a partial degradation, the second a 
slow development. 
Carpenter remarks, “It is impossible to draw hard and fast lines between species 
and variety, for the use of these terms must depend on the knowledge and opinion 
of the naturalist.” Thus, some would make it easy to sweep away by the stroke of 
a pen the conditions of sexual sterility as a test; but the question is not to be 
dismissed lightly by a consideration of the mere facts of hybridism. 
The older writers on the Membracidse may be thus noted in sequence. 
Linnaeus, Fabricius, Caspar Stoll, Latreille, and a little later, Germar, Burmeister, 
and Amyot and Serville. All published descriptions of species of the family, 
and sometimes with a few figures to help in their identification. 
But it was not until Dr. Leon Fairmaire’s Revue de la Tribe des Membracides 
appeared in 1845 and 1840 in the Ann. Soc. Entom. de France, that the literature of 
the family took definite shape. Since his time, we have Lad the labours of Stal, 
Walker, Goding; and quite recently, the memoir of Canon W. W. Fowler, whose 
monograph forms one of the valuable contributions to the spirited and important 
addition to scientific history so liberally made by Messrs. Godman and Salvin in 
the Biolopia Centrali Americana. 
Briefly it may be remarked that Caspar Stoll’s third volume was published in 
Dutch and in French at Amsterdam in 1788, before Linnaeus’ famous binomial 
system of nomenclature was fully adopted. Consequently the figures given in 
Stoll’s Representation des Cigales et des Punaises are not easily identified with 
insects of the present day, though the coloured copperplate figures are carefully 
executed, and the descriptions are good so far as they go. 
Fairmaire’s Revue is important. It is accompanied with five plates in plain 
outline, which characterise the genera and some of the species he describes and 
tabulates. 
Dr. Fairmaire had temporary possession of the rich collections of Maximilien 
Spinosa, and of Professor Germar of Halle. He studied also the cabinets of Messrs. 
Signoret, Serville, and Lefebvre. Professor Westwood lent him many “ especes tres 
curieuses” which had been collected from the East Indies and parts of Mexico. 
In great measure I rely on the synonomy furnished by so great an adept as Dr. 
Fairmaire, in those cases where a personal comparison of species has not been 
-attainable by me. 
He represents the Membracidse as being all Phytophagus. They leap with great 
facility, and they can also use their wings for short flights from tree to tree. Some 
live in communities, whilst others form smaller groups, their location being much 
