CAMILLO RONDANI AND HIS RELATIONS WITH LOEW 
145 
festecl after bis death (September, 1879). A subscription was raised 
for the purpose of erecting a memorial in the shape of a marble 
bust, which was placed within the building of the University, 
and inaugurated in May, 1881, in presence of the Civic Authorities, 
of the Professors of the principal educational institutions in 
Parma, and of a large concourse of the public, including ladies 
(“ la severa cerimonia era allietata dalla presenza di molte belje ed 
eleganti signore,” said a local paper). A pamphlet was published: 
Camillo Rondani, Commemorazione, Parma, 1881; forty pages 
8vo, with a plate, representing the bust. Two other biographical 
notices appeared in the same year, 1881, by Professor Michele 
Lessona, in Turin, and by Dr. A. del Prato in Parma. I reproduce 
these details, because it is not often that a dipterologist has been 
thus honored. It offers a striking contrast to the apparent indif¬ 
ference with which the news of Loew’s, Schiner’s, and other dipter- 
ologists’ deaths have been received by the general public. 
My acquaintance with Rondani’s works is not very thorough, 
because I have never been engaged in the special study of European 
Diptera, and it would have been unjust to judge Rondani merely 
by his work on non-European faunas. But, from a general survey 
of his works, I obtained the impression that he had an excellent 
eye for affinities, as well as for the discovery of leading characters, 
and that, in this respect, his natural ability was decidedly superior 
to that of Loew. 
In preparing my papers on “ Chaetotaxy ” (1881 and 1884) I had 
used the term macrochaetae without inquiring about its origin and 
its first appearance in literature. It was only several years later 
that I happened to look into one of Rondani’s earlier publications 
(in the Nuov. Ann. Sci. Nat., Bologna, 18^5) ; “ Descrizioni di due 
generi nuovi di insetti Ditteri.” It treats of Tachinidae, and 
shows that Rondani had immediately become aware of the impor¬ 
tance of their characteristic bristles, as affording distinctive char¬ 
acters which had not been used before (“ caratteri distinctivi i quali 
non erano prima considerati ”). At the same time, he attempted 
to introduce a more precise nomenclature of them (“ ho creduto 
necessario di modificare alcune espressioni poco precise che si veg- 
gono usate dai ditterologia ”). He begins by pointing out the 
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