156 
NOTES ON CHAETOTAXY 
I pointed out that “most of the Calyptrata , except the Antho- 
myidae , have a tuft or row of bristles on the hypopleura, which 
is destitute of them in the other families of Diptera.” Brauer 
was candid enough to acknowledge that this family-character had 
been discovered by Osten-Sacken. 1 In his later publications 
Brauer became so far converted to Chaetotaxy as to make use of 
its terminology, which he had spurned before. In a notice about 
the genus Aulacocephala Gerst. in the Anzeiyer Akad. Wiss. 
Wien, 1899, p. 288, he uses the terms: sternopleuralborsten 
and hypopleuralborsten. Nevertheless, in his “ Obituary of Mik ” 
( Wiener Ent. Zeit., 1901, p. 4) Brauer could not resist the temp¬ 
tation of again venting his spite against me in the following 
sentence, which stands there ci propos de bottes : “ Die Lehre von 
der Borstenstellung wurde 1873, — lange bevor ein anderer den 
gelehrten Namen ‘ Chaetotaxie ’ dafiir erfand — von Mik und Loew 
gelibt, und erst in neuerer Zeit in ilirer Bedeutung gewiirdigt 
(Girschner)” 2 
Brauer would have been nearer the truth if he had named 
Rondani as the originator of the idea of Chaetotaxy. As to 
Brauer’s statement about Girschner, although uttered ab irato , it is, 
nevertheless, perfectly correct: it was the merit of Mr. E. Gir¬ 
schner to give to Chaetotaxy a much greater development and ap¬ 
plication than it had had before, and to treat it as a sine qua non of 
descriptive dipterology. His enviable talent for drawing enabled 
him to illustrate his papers by diagrams more eloquent than any 
descriptions. 
About the origin of the term macrochaetae , due to Rondani (1845), 
its further history, and about the use of characters borrowed from 
the position of bristles by Rondani and Rob.-Desvoidy, I have 
given an account in my Chapter XIX, “Rondani and Loew.” 
1 Tlie discovery of this important character has been, inadvertently, attributed to 
Mr. E. Girschner by I)r. Job. Schnabl in the Wiener Ent. Zeit., 1902, p. 128. Upon 
my friendly remonstrance (in Uteris) the very next number of the same periodical 
(on p. 184) published the necessary correction. Mr. D. W. Coquillett reproduced the 
same error in his remarkable paper, “ A Systematic Arrangement of the Families of 
the Diptera” (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., Vol. XXIII, p. 05, 1901). 
2 Translation: “ The doctrine about the position of bristles has been used in 1873 
by Mik and Loew, long before another invented the learned name ‘Chaetotaxy ’ for 
it, and it is only recently that its importance has been fully recognized (Girschner).” 
