126 
LOEW AS A DIPTEROLOGIST 
the descriptions of Loew, in which it is almost impossible to mis¬ 
take the species. And it is for this reason very much to be regretted 
that this veteran in dipterology had no taste for Anthomyiidae , as 
appears from a very drastic utterance which he made to my 
respected friend von Iloder in Hoyrn, when the name of the genus 
was mentioned: ‘ Preserve me from that vermin ’ (‘ Gelien Sie 
mir mit dem Geschmeiss’) ! It is indeed remarkable that Loew 
persistently resisted the attraction which the unsightly but interest¬ 
ing Anthomyiidae afford, and, with the exception of a few genera 
( Homalomyia , Azelia , Lispe ), would never have anything to do 
with them. The few descriptions of North American Anthomyiidae 
which he gave in the ‘ Centuriae ’ leave nothing to desire (‘ sind 
mustergiiltig’).” 
Loew's new genus Blaesoxipha ( Sarcophagidae , 1861) provoked 
an apparently well-merited criticism of Schiner ( Verh. zool.-bot. 
Gresellsch., Wien, 1863, p. 1037). 
Loew’s held of predilection (and the one in which he excelled) 
was minutiae , as he himself says in his letter to me of November 
10, 1862 (already quoted on p. 50) : “ Minutiae are my true spe¬ 
cialty, particularly when they fall within the domain of the Acalyp- 
trata! ” This preference may be explained by the fact that 
Acalyptrata , in general, offer characters more definite and easier to 
get hold of than some families with species of larger dimensions. 
Genera and species of Tabanidae and Asilidae , for instance, are 
more difficult to define (so as to he recognizable in a description) 
than most of the Acalyptrata ( Ortalidae , Trypetidae, Helomyzidae , 
Ephydridae , etc.). For Loew’s keen eye, size made no difference; 
but owing to his very moderate ability to discern leading characters, 
he was led instinctively to recognize that his work on Acalyptrata 
was more satisfactory to himself than perhaps any other work, and 
hence in the latter part of his career he became especially devoted 
to it. In the Acalyptrata , macrochaetae are less mixed up with 
other hairs, and, I may say, obtrude themselves more easily upon 
the attention. This explains why Loew began to make a regular 
use of macrochaetae in his descriptions of Acalyptrata, and espe¬ 
cially in his paper “On the European Ilelomyzidae” (Sc hies . 
Zeitschr. Ent ., 1859). But he did not, by far, exhaust this new 
