LOEW AS A DIPTEROLOGIST 
105 
peared and, in the interval between 1840 and 1878, produced nearly 
6000 octavo and 1200 quarto pages of principally descriptive work, 
comprising more than four thousand new European and exotic species 
(fossil Diptera not included). Considering that this work, with, I 
may say, one single exception (his publications on fossil Diptera), 
was thoroughly conscientious, and showed throughout a remarkable 
homogeneousness in the finish of its execution, we cannot refrain 
from acknowledging the extent of the progress achieved, within 
the interval of less than forty years, by the herculean effort of one 
single man. What would have been the state of dipterology now, 
if Loew had not appeared, and progress had depended on the efforts 
of nationally isolated entomologists, men sometimes of undoubted 
talent, like Robineau-Desvoidy , Say, Curtis , Holiday , and Ran¬ 
dom , but each one working in his own way, having his own system, 
and his own particular terminology? I have quoted in my Chapter 
XIV a passage from one of Loew’s letters to me, in which, at the 
close of his own career (in 1878), he complained of the isolation of 
dipterologists, who had formed, as he said, national corporations 
(“ abgeschlossene Landmannschaften ”),each one following a sepa¬ 
rate system and nomenclature, “ a Babel-like confusion of lan¬ 
guages is the rule, and the collapse of the great tower of Babel 
seems to be impending! ” There is no doubt that, without the in¬ 
tervention of Loew after the retreat of Meigen, this state of things 
would have been much worse. 
After this general statement, I shall proceed with a survey of 
Loew’s entomological publications. 
As a naturalist, Loew had received an excellent training in the 
University of Halle, where he had studied mathematics and natural 
history. He could dissect, and was a skilful draughtsman. In 
looking over the list of his earlier publications in Hagen’s “ Biblio¬ 
theca,” we find a number of purely anatomical papers among them 
(I shall give their titles in English) : No. 5. On the genital organs 
of female Diptera (1841) ; No. 7. Anatomy of the coleopteron 
Buprestis mariana (1841) ; No. 8. On peculiar nerve-structures 
in the genital organs of the females of some insects (1841) ; No. 
10. Horae anatomicae, a separate work of 126 pages with plates, on 
the anatomy of insects (1841); No. 15. On the so-called “ Saug- 
