224 
LIST OF MY ENTOMOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS ETC. 
lines with me (on the Classification, Nomenclature etc. of Diptera). I could not 
move without hitting him. “Collidehantur in utero matris parvuli”! (Genesis, 
XXV, 22.) 
Although my criticisms were expressed in the most measured terms, they 
exposed the utter incompetence of the author for the task he had undertaken. 
This publication seems to have taken Brauer by sur^se. In evident haste, he 
^lued a Rejoinder entitled: “Offenes Scbreiben, als Antwort auf Herrn Baron 
Osten Sacken’s Critical Review (sic!) meiner Arbeit liber die Notacantlien". 
Vienna, 1888, 11 pages. At that time, I did not take the slightest notice of 
this publication, as it was evidently an explosion of impotent wrath without 
any scientific value, a succession of flat denials without any proof. As an in¬ 
stance, I quote the passage (on p. 11): “Die von Herrn Baron Osten Sacken so 
sehr hervorgehobenen Fehler sind gar keine Fehler, und das wegwerfende Ur- 
theil ist somit aus der Luft gegriffen”. Brauer seems to have been under the 
spell of a hallucination when he said (p. 10): “Osten Sacken hat meiner Arbeit 
einen degradirenden anderen Titel gegeben; ich unterlasse es, die “critical re¬ 
view” des Herrn Baron Osten Sacken bei ihrem wahren Namen zu nennen” etc. 
This expression “critical review”, which seems to have haunted Brauer, does 
not occur at all in my paper 1 ) and even if I had used it, there is nothing de¬ 
grading in it. On p. 8, with evident glee, Brauer points out a supposed omis¬ 
sion of mine, which he imagined to have discovered: ^Hirmoneura clausa 0. S. 
hat, nach meiner Untersuchung von sechs Exemplaren aus Colorado, einen lan- 
gen diinnen Riissel, der bis zu den Hinterhtiften reicht. — Osten Sacken er- 
wdhnt den Russel gar nicht ”. Although I immediately became aware of the 
blunder Brauer was committing here, I waited for fourteen years, until the 
pointing out of that lapsus became unavoidable. In the Berl. Ent. Z. 1897, p. 149, 
I showed that the whole paragraph in Brauer’s “Offenes Schreiben”, p. 8 about 
Ilirmoneura clausa 0. S., Rhynchoceplialus and Parasymmictus Bigot is simply 
nonsensical , because it is based, not upon any error of mine, but upon the fact 
that the six specimens from Colorado, which Brauer had had before him were 
not Ilirmoneura clausa 0. S. at all, but another species. Far from making no 
mention of the proboscis, I had distinctly described it: “Face densely covered 
with pale yellowish hair, through which a short, reddish proboscis is hardly 
visible”. Of a “long proboscis, reaching the hind coxae”, there is no question. 
If I have insisted upon this incident at some length, it was because it be¬ 
came the origin of the unmitigated rancor which Brauer since that time bore 
against me, a rancor which affected his reputation. This did not prevent me 
from giving in this “Record”, Part II, p. 1G8, a glowing account of Brauer’s 
success in bis true vocation, the biology of Insects, and especially of his work 
on Oestridae. 
1 My paper S9 (1882) begins with the words: “A comparative critical 
survey'" etc. 
