THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 175 



NOTES ON THE SYNONYMY OF SOME GENERA AND 

 SPECIES IN THE CHLOROPID.E (DIPTERA).* 



BY J. R. MALLOCH, BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY. WASHINGTON, D.C. 



Williston, in his "Manual of North American Diptera," 1908, 

 gives to this family the name Oscinidse. Unfortunately, the 

 generic name Oscinis is a synonym of the earlier name Chlorops, 

 as indicated in the following synonymy, so that, even had the name 

 of the family not previously been Chloropidae, the name Oscinidae 

 could not be retained. Coquillett, in his paper on "The Type- 

 Species of the North American Genera of Diptera," 1910, made 

 some alterations in the status of certain genera in the family, but 

 ■some of his conclusions are incorrect. Most European authors 

 refuse to accept Lioy's genera, and of those who have dealt with 

 this family in recent years only Enderlein has recognized any of 

 Lioy's genera as valid. While many of Lioy's genera are synonyms 

 of older genera, and his identifications often obviously wrong, it 

 must be apparent to an unbiased person that wherever it is pos- 

 sible to decide definitely what his genera are, and in all cases he 

 cites species, they must be accepted, provided they are in other 

 respects valid. It seems to me that the acceptance of Meigen's 

 genera included in the 1800 paper, and those of his 1803 paper 

 which had no species included in them, by European writers and 

 their wholesale disregard of Lioy's genera savors slightly of incon- 

 sistency. Enderlein, in a paper on the subfamily Oscinosominae 

 (Sitz. d. Ges. Naturf. Freu, 1911), evidently was unaware of the 

 fact that Coquillett had made use of Lioy's genera in 1910 and re- 

 tained the generic name Oscinosoma, which Coquillett sunk as a 

 synonym of Botanohia, and reversed the order as given by that 

 writer. Possibly his reason for using the generic name Oscinosoma 

 was to retain as the name of the subfamily one which had as near 

 an approach to the old one {Oscinis) as possible. This position 

 might be tenable, even though Botanobia has line priority, but for 

 the fact that Coquillett had previously indicated Botanobia as the 

 generic name to replace Osci7iis Sind gave Oscinosoma as a synonym. 

 It is regrettable that these questions of nomenclature occur so 

 often, and that they cause such confusion; but, when they do crop 

 up, it is advisable that they should be settled, and when one under- 



*Piiblished by permission of the Chief of the Bureau of Entomology. 

 June, 1913 



