ALEXANDER: DIPJERA 579 



significant dates of publication. Complete references may be checked in Hagen's 

 Bibliotheca Entomologica, The Zoological Record (1864-clate), and in other 

 standard works. 



First Period, 1758-1853 



Linnaeus (1758) recognized only ten genera of Diptera, with no distribu- 

 tion into families, and including only 188 species. These genera in their exact 

 arrangement and with the number of included species are as follows : 



Genus Species Genus Species 



220. Oestrus 5 225. Empis 3 



221. Tipula 37 226. Conops 6 



222. Musca 100 227. Asilus 12 



223. Tabanus 12 228. Bombylius 3 



224. Culex 6 229. Hippobosca 4 



Virtually all of the species were from Europe and chiefly from Sweden, with 

 a very few from North America. That Linnaeus had no idea of systematic inter- 

 relationships is shown by his separation of the two Nematocerous groups, Tipula 

 and Culex. Linnaeus' outstanding entomological student, Fabricius, greatly in- 

 creased the number of species, both from Europe and abroad, and in introduc- 

 ing his so-called Cibarian system of insect orders, based on a study of their 

 mouthparts, proposed the ordinal name Antliata to replace the Linnaean term 

 Diptera, a suggestion that found little or no acceptance among later workers. 



In 1800 there appeared a highly controversial paper by Meigen, the "Father 

 of Dipterology," followed (1803-1838) by a series of notable works by this same 

 student. Toward the end of the period several workers appeared, including Mac- 

 quart (1838-1855) and Wiedemann (1819; 1828-1830), whose principal publi- 

 cations were on exotic Diptera, then becoming available in some numbers through 

 various scientific expeditions. Other taxonomists included Curtis (1824-1840), 

 Fallen (1814-1825), Haliday, Latreille, Robineau-Desvoidy (1830), Say, Schel- 

 lenberg (1803), Stephens (1828-1846), and, toward the end of the period, West- 

 wood (1839-1840), Zetterstedt, and Francis Walker. 



In dipterous morphology, important basic work was done by Latreille (1825), 

 who proposed terms such as prothorax, mesothorax, and the like, and by Audouin 

 (1824-1832) who further refined the terminology of the thorax, giving us such 

 familiar terms as scutum, praescutum, scutellum, episternum, and many others. 

 In biology and life histories, the early studies by Swammerdam were carried for- 

 ward in the notable works of De Geer and Reaumur. The first general textbooks 

 on entomology were prepared by Burmeister, Kirby and Spence, and Westwood. 



Second Period, 1853-1903 



The close of the preceding period and the virtual end of the belief in "fixity 

 of species" with the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), intro- 

 duced a new and vigorous epoch. The pre-Darwinian belief resulted in an almost 

 incredible synonymy in the order, as exemplified in an extreme instance in the 

 posthumous work of Robineau-Desvoidy (1863), wherein the common parasitic 

 fly, Tachina vulgaris Fallen, was redescribed no fewer than 245 times, the sup- 

 posed species being distributed in five different genera! 



In 1853, museums and collections containing Diptera were generally small 



