Article beginning on page 171.
Psyche 9:171-172, 1900.
Full text (searchable PDF)
Durable link: http://psyche.entclub.org/9/9-171.html
The following unprocessed text is extracted from the PDF file, and is likely to be both incomplete and full of errors. Please consult the PDF file for the complete article.
PSYCHE.
IDENTIFICATION OF TWO OF FITCH'S SPECIES, VIZ., DELTO- CEPHALUS MELSHEIMERII AND CHLOROTETTIX UNICOLOR. It was my good fortune the past sum-
mer to spend a few days in Albany,
N. Y., and while there, was greatly fa-
vored by Dr. E. P. Felt, State Entornolo- gist, who kindly allowed mc to study the specimens in the box of Fitch types of
Hornoptera.
It will be remembered that in 1851
Dr. Fitch published a list of the Hom-
optera of New York State which he
entitled a '' Catalogue with references
and descriptions of the insects collected and arranged for the State Cabinet of
Natural History,"
The insects upon which the paper
was based were given printed numbers
ranging between 609 and 874 inclusive,
and were placed in the collection of the New York State Cabinet of Natural
History in 1850. In 1879, as we are
told in Dr. Lintner's Ninth Report as
State Enton~ologist, p. 380, the collec- tion was transferred to the office of the State Entomologist. The case contain-
ing the collection is kept hermetically
sealed in a dark place and most of the
specimens, except for the Aphididae and
Typhlocybinae are still in a fair state
FORT COLLINS: COLO.
of preservation. Prior to 1879, museum
pests destroyed a considerable number
of specimens and the color markings of
others have largely faded out.
A label upon the box in Dr. Lintner's
hand reads as follows :
HOMOPTERA
Arranged by Dr. Fitch in 1850; Trans-
ferred to this case in 1879.
Con-
tains 54 species and i; subspecies
of types of Dr. Fitch. See Fourth
Report N. Y. State Cabinet N. H.,
PP. 43-69.''
One of my chief objects in examining
this collection was to determine whether or not Mr. *Baker is correct in overturn- ing the opinions of other specialists as to the true Deltocephalus meIsheimerii
and Chlorotettix uniculu~ of Fitch, both of which were reported in " Hemiptera of
Colorado" (Bulletin 3 I of the Experi-
ment Station).
Deltocephalus melsheimerii Fitch. -
Although Dr. Fitch speaks of this
species as " Common on grass," he
described it from a single pair, the male *Psyche, 1897, p. 118 and 1898, p. 219.
================================================================================
172 PSYCHE. l^March, 1901
of which he numbered 805 and the
female 806. The male has been lost
but the female, with her originalnumber, still remains and is intact, except for the loss of the tip of one wing cover.
In
color, it is bleached nearly white, so
that the length,-.IO of an inch-given
by Dr. Fitch, is all in the description
that can now be applied to it.
Mr. Baker, in the first paper referred
to above, speaks of having "the original Fitch type "? before him and pronounces
it the same as D. minims of Osborn
(He should have said Osborn and Ball)
and proceeds to condone Prof. Osborn
by saying Still a good description of the genuine melsheimerii was much needed."
I had with me type specimens of D.
minimus O&B and found by careful com-
parison that there could be no possibility of its being the same as Fitch's melshei- merii. Either the supposed type that
Mr. Baker studied in the collection of
the National Museum is unlike the type
that Dr. Fitch placed in the State Cabi- net, or Mr. Baker is not familiar with
minimus. That minimus should occur
at all in the collection made by Dr. Fitch is very improbable as so good a collector as Mr. Van Uuzee has never taken it in
N. Y. and. Dr. Fitch reported meishei-
meriitL Common on grass." Farthermore,
minimus seems to be distinctively a
western species and probably does not
occur east of the Mississippi.
The eastern specimens of meZshe1nzerii
average smaller in size and lighter in
color than the western and the type
specimen, number 806, does not exceed
a large specimen of minimus in length.
It is readily separated from 'the latter species by its more robust foirn and by
the entire hind margin of the last ven-
tral segment of the female In minimus
the last ventral segment is moderately
produced and has upon its hind margin
two very distinct teeth as shown in the
accompanying figure (A).
A, under surface of the abdomen of Delia- ce-pkdus minimus, showing the produced
last ventral scymcnt of the -female with two distinct teeth; B, under surface of the abdo- men of the female of D. melskimerii show ing the hind margin of the last ventral see ment entire and not produced; C, under
surface of the end of the abdomen in the male of D, wel&heimerii,' v, the large valve, p, short podical plates.
After a thorough study of the type, I
went into a grass pasture in the suburbs of Albany and collected five females
and four males of a species of Deltoceph- alus that I recognized at once to be
like the type and they also proved to be identical with what Mr Van Duzee had
sent me years ago from N. Y. as D.
mehfieimwii. The differences in the
genitalia of the males of these two
species are even more striking than in
the females.
================================================================================
March, 19011 PSYCHE. 173
The males of minimus, as well as the
closely related species, minhii, oculatus, and sylvesfris, have the valve relatively small and the plates long, so that the
latter project beyond the valve a dis-
tance equal to once or twice the length
of the valve. Mehheimerii, on the other
hand, is readily separated from the
preceding by its proportionately large
valve and very short plates. The latter
do not project beyond the valve to a
distance more than one third or one half the length of the valve. See the accom-
panying figure (C) .
I must conclude then that Deltocefiha-
lus melsheimerii is distinct from If. mini- mus; that the references to D. melshei-
merii in '< Hemiptera of Colorado" were
correct ; and that D. affinis G&B is a
synonym of D. melsheimerii,
Chlorotettix mricoliir Fitc11.- This
species was described from a single fe-
male, to which Dr. Fitch gave the num-
ber 767, 'She type is still in a good state INSECTS AND SPIDERS OF
of preservation except that it is consid- erably faded in color.
Mr. Kakcr in his article on Chlorotettix referred to above reports upon an exam-
ination of what he supposes to be a
Fitch type in the National Museum and
says it is the species described by Mr.
Van Duzee as C. galbinata. This being
correct, the specimens reported in
" Hemiptera of Colorado " as C. unicolor must be wrong. I compared the type of
unicolor with C galbinata Van D., and
with the Colorado specimens of C. unico- lor and found Mr. Van Duzee's deter-
niinations to he correct and his galbinata very distinct from the type of micolor.
The descriptions of both these species
as given by Mr. Van Duzee in PSYCHE
of August, 1892, pp. 308-311 are correct and will enable any one conversant with
the gross anatomy of these insects to
correctly separate the species without so much as a hand lens to aid him, unless
his eyesight is very poor.
I'HE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS.
BY VERNON L. KELLOGG, STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CAL By the financial aid of Mr. Timothy
Hopkins of Men10 Park, California,
Stanford University was enabled to
send two zoologists with Captain Noyes
of the ninety-six ton schooner Julia E.
Whalcn (San Francisco) to the Galapa-
gos Islands in November, 1898. Mr.
Robert Evans Snodgrass, assistant in
entomology, and Mr. Edmund Hellcr,
student in zoology, were selected to
make the trip. They reached the
Archipelago on December 22, 1898,
and remained in it until June 23, rS9q.
In the time of their stay they visited
every island of the group except the
small island called Jervis, spending
from two to sixty days on each island.
Some of the larger islands were visited
================================================================================
Volume 9 table of contents