History.

The first New Zealand species of Orsillini was described by Fabricius (1794) as Lygaeus clavicornis from material labelled “Selandia” and mistakenly assumed to be from “Hafniae” on the Danish island of “Selandia.” Clavicornis was later removed to Coreus (Fabricius, 1803), but inasmuch as there was already a Coreus clavicornis proposed as new on a previous page of the same work, Fabricius renamed this last as typhaecornis in his “emendanda.” Strobilotoma typhaecornis (Fabr.) is now a well-known European Coreid. The New Zealand Lygaeid was later described by Dallas (1852) as Nysius zealandicus and was made the type of a new sub-genus, Rhypodes, by Stäl (1868). Buchanan-White added two more species, Nysius anceps and huttoni in 1878. Here the matter rested for a half a century until Evans, (1929a) reviewed “the genera included under Nysius, auctt.,” made Nysius anceps the type of a new genus, Hudsona, and made clavicornis Fabr. (= zealandicus Dallas) the type of a new genus Myersia. Soon after this, Myersia was sunk as a synonym of Rhypodes (1929b) because their genotypes are identical. Thus we have, at present, three described species, one belonging to the cosmopolitan genus Nysius and one each belonging to the endemic genera Rhypodes and Hudsona.

The present paper deals with a collection of eighty-eight specimens received from Messrs. W. E. China (British Museum of Natural History), H. G. Barber (United States National Museum) and G. V. Hudson. Much of this material was collected by the accomplished Hemipterist, J. G. Myers, from 1921 to 1923, and by G. V. Hudson from 1921 to 1938. This collection contains not only fine series of the three previously known species, but also representatives of five additional species which are described below. Several uniques probably represent still different species, but it seems best to be conservative in the description of new species at this stage. Further field work will doubtless reveal many important additions to this remarkable fauna.