BRAUER AND MIK 
171 
presupposes for Scliiner a study of several, perhaps many years, 
at any rate before the date 1850, assigned to it by Brauer. In a 
letter to me, dated 1868, and quoted by me on p. 163 above, 
Scliiner mentioned his twenty years of occupation with Diptera, 
which shows that he must have begun it about 1848. This 
instance suffices for the rest, as an example of Brauer’ s inaccuracy. 
But the principal task for Brauer should have consisted in giving 
an account of his own work on Diptera. Unfortunately, with ante¬ 
cedents like his, it was easy to foresee that this task would prove 
impossible for him, and the result has justified this prevision. As, 
in this “ Report,” Brauer could not forego the temptation of a re¬ 
newed attack upon me, I feel bound to take notice of it here, even 
at the risk of repeating myself. 
One of the principal events of Brauer’s scientific career was the 
publication, in 1883, of his new “ System of Diptera.” His “ Report ” 
does not contain a single word about it. Brauer was evidently 
ashamed to recall this hastily constructed, incoherent scheme, in 
which the preposterous group Encephala embraced the following 
medley of families: Mycetophilidae , Bibionidae , Chironomidae , Culi- 
cidae , Blepharoceridae , Simuliidae , Psychodidae , Rhyphidae , and 
even the Ptychopterina, which were thus separated from the Tipu- 
lidae ! This silence of Brauer about his “ System ” saved him from 
the disagreeable duty of reporting the doleful tale of its complete 
collapse. The intervention of Prof. L. C. Miall (of Leeds), with 
his statement about the position of the brain of Chironomus, 
demolished at one stroke the edifice of Brauer’s pretended “Unter- 
suchungen ” and “ Thatsachen ! ” Whether this important omis¬ 
sion was consistent with Professor Brauer’s duty towards the 
learned Society which had entrusted him with the task of preparing 
the Report on Diptera, is another question. 
The history of the eollapse of Brauer’s “ System ” is told in my article in the 
Berl. Ent. Zeit., 1893, p. 378-379: “ Rejoinder to Professor Brauer’s ‘ Thatsachliche 
Berichtigungen,’” etc.; in Brauer’s “ Bemerkungen,” etc. (ibid., 1894, p. 235), in 
which, with his usual haste and negligence, he quoted a statement from Weis- 
mann, that he believed to refer to Corethra, while it referred to Chironomus ; and 
in the short reply, of seven lines only, of Professor Miall (ibid., 1894, p. 447), 
stating that “ the quotation from Weismann related to Chironomus and not to 
Corethra, which has no place in this discussion,” etc. 
