On the Nomenclature of New Zealand Homoptera.

By J. G. Myers.

same author is a typical male with the pygophor missing. This synonymy has been correctly indicated by previous writers and in addition Cicada zealandica Boisd. is apparently referable to the same species. At the Museum of Natural History, Paris, Mons. E. Séguy, in charge of Diptera and Hemiptera, kindly showed me the New Zealand cicada material, but Boisduval's type was not among it and is apparently no longer to be found.

Melampsalta cruentata (Fabr.).

The type material in the Banksian collection is in good condition and comprises two males, one corresponding to Walker's Cicada cincta and the other to M. indistincta Myers, which as I shall show later is identical with Walker's C. nervosa and C. sericea. The excellent and appropriate description of cruentata by Fabricius agrees in every respect with cincta, and not with the second species. It is extraordinary that subsequent workers, including myself, should have confused this species after reading the description, even without seeing the type. The relevant synonymy will stand as follows,—

M. cruentata (Fabr.) nec Staal, Distant, Hutton, Kirkaldy, Myers, Syn. M. cincta (Walk.) et auctt., the type of which is a normal male of moderate size.

Melampsalta sericea (Walk.), 1850, p 169.

The type is an average female of the species described by myself (Revision, p. 245) as M. indistincta. The type of Cicada nervosa Walker (Cat. Homopt. B.M., 1850, p. 213) is a normal male of the same species and has thus nothing whatever to do with the alpine M. cassiope (Huds.) which was ranged with it under the synonymy of the purely Australian M. quadricincta (Walk.) which again is quite distinct from either. It is hoped to figure the male genitalia of all these forms in a larger forthcoming work.

Melampsalta muta (Fabr.), Kirby (part), Distant (part), Hudson (part), Hutton, Kirkaldy; nec Myers.

The type material in the Banksian collection comprises two females,—a stout South Island example (labelled “Forster”) of var. subalpina (Huds.), and a smaller and more typical specimen of the very common lowland form hitherto known as cruentata (Revision, p. 244). The latter agrees better with the description and is therefore to be considered the holotype. The commonest cicada of New Zealand, which has been a puzzle so long on account of its intense variability and sexual dimorphism, becomes, therefore, once more M. muta, as indeed it was considered until Distant restricted that name to the green varieties of the same species and at the same time extended it to include the distinct, unicolorous green species called by Hudson Cicada aprilina, but henceforth to be known as M. ochrina (Walk.).

The synonyms of M. muta include the following types of Walker, all of which were examined.—

Cicada rosea Walk., a large and not very dark male. Possibly a faded example of the var. cutora Walk.

C. angusta, a buff and blackish male, slightly pubescent and resembling examples taken by Dr. Tillyard at Mt. Cook, at an elevation of 2,500 feet.

C. bilinea, a small greenish female of the type form.

C. cutora Walk., a long-winged green female belonging to a distinct variety co-ordinate with var. subalpina, and to be described as such in a forthcoming paper. I suggested (Rep. Austr. Ass. Adv. Sci., (1923), p. 428, 1924) that the latter was entitled to specific rank, but almost immediately afterwards a series of strictly intermediate forms was found at the Dun Mountain, Nelson, connecting it with the type.

Melampsalta ochrina (Walk.)

The type is a rather small, beautiful yellow specimen of the uni-colorous green species described by Hudson as Cicada aprilina. This type may be either a faded specimen, or as seems from its brightness more probable to me, an example of a colour-variety which I have taken in the field and which differs from the normal only in the replacement of the green coloration by a beautiful clear yellow. Be this as it may, Walker's name unfortunately has priority and must be retained for this species. Synonyms are,—

Cicada aprilina Hudson,

M. muta Distant (part), Myers, nec Fabricius.

Melampsalta scutellaris (Walk.).

The type is a male agreeing exactly with the current conception (Revision, p. 242). Cicada arche Walk. (suggested by Kirby as a synonym of scutellaris), C. telxiope Walk. and C. duplex Walk. form a possibly conspecific group with no resemblance to any New Zealand species and least of all to M. scutellaris.

Melampsalta mangu Buchanan White.

The Buchanan White collection is in the Perth Museum in the north of Scotland. Great thanks are due to Mr. W. E. China for his care in securing a loan of some of this type material, and to the Perth and British Museum authorities for allowing me to study one of the cicadas in America. Buchanan White (Ent. Monthl. Mag., v. 15, p. 214, 1879) evidently had two species before him, comprised in four examples from “Porter's Pass, Canterbury, about 3,500 feet,” collected by Wakefield. The bulk of the description seems to refer to the common alpine cicada named by Hudson, C. cassiope, but hitherto placed in the synonymy of the Australian M. quadricincta (Walk.) (Revision, p. 246). But the only remaining material of M. mangu in the Buchanan White collection is a female in poor condition labelled “mangu” presumably in White's handwriting, and with the locality “Porter's Pass,” but lacking a date. It is reasonable to suppose that this example is one of the original four, and therefore by elimination to be considered the type of mangu. It is not conspecific with M. cassiope but with a form of which I have a series from the Dun Mountain, Nelson, and which I was about to describe as new. This species was not known to me when I wrote the Revision (1921). Buchanan White's specimen differs only in the fact that the hind-

Cercopidae.

The types of Walker and of Adam White were examined at the British Museum, but further study is needed to elucidate them. It is hoped to revise all the New Zealand species in the near future.

Cicadellidae (Jassoidea).

In my “Contribution to the study of New Zealand Leaf-hoppers and Plant-hoppers” (Trans. N.Z. Inst., 54, pp. 407–429, 1923) the following changes are desirable.—p. 408. Tettigoniellinae should be Cicadellinae.

Paropiinae should be Ulopinae. None of the former subfamily is yet known from New Zealand.

The seven species placed in the genus Diedrocephla Spinola belong to the tribe Errhomenellini. Professor C. F. Baker, to whom I am indebted for much help and many valuable suggestions, considers that they belong or are very close to Tylozygus Fieber. This European genus was erected in 1866 (Verh. z.-b. Ges. Wien, p. 501, t. 7, f. 11) for the Tettigonia nigrolineata of Herrich-Schaeffer (Panz., Faun. Germ., 164, 17). The type species was founded on material (one? example) said to have come from Bohemia, but Melichar (1896) in his Cicadinen von Mittel-Europa comments on the fact that it has never been rediscovered and suggests that the original material may have come from North America. But the genus is at present as unknown in North America as in Europe.

I have compared the New Zealand material with Fieber's careful diagnoses, both the original cited above and the amplified one in Cicadines d'Europe, (1875, diagnosis; 1876, figures). There are several divergences in the shape of the head and the venation, so that there may be grounds for erecting a new and endemic genus for the New Zealand forms. For the present they may, however, be left in Tylozygus, to which they are certainly related.

Cixiidae.