Contributions to the Study of the Liponeuridae L\v. 163 



Y. Motiee on Loew's synonymy of Blepharocera 

 fasciata and Liponeura cinerascens 



in his Revision etc. 1877. 

 Having found occasion, recently, to study Loew's Revision etc. 

 again, I discovered to my astonishment that the synonymy of Bleph. 

 fasciata and Lip. cinerascens, on p. 87 and 88 of his paper (1877) 

 which I had formerly contidently relied upon, was not correct. In 

 attempting to point out Schiner's error (in his Fauna, II, p. 637, 

 1864) Loew, I.e. p. 59 and 60 misunderstood Schiner. It was very 

 natural that the genera Bleph. and Lipon, should have becomc the 

 stumbling-block of Dipterologists, as they offer a most remarkable 

 exception to the general rule prevailing among Diptera: that the 

 males have holoptic heads, and the females dichoptic ones. In Ble- 

 pharocera both sexes are holoptic, in Liponeiira both are dichoptic. 

 Both genera are very much alike in coloring, and sometimes occur 

 at the same time, and in the same locality. Macquart received 

 (1843) a Blepharocera Q. which, for its holoptic head, he took for 

 a (f. In 1844 he received a Liponeura cf from the same locality, 

 and described it as the male of the Bleph. which in 1843 he had 

 taken for a cf, and which he now recognized for a Q (as in reality 

 it was).') Schiner, in preparing the 2. vol. of his Fauna had speci- 

 mens of Bleph. Q and of Lipon. Q (not cf like Macq.), which he 

 also united under same specific name, taking (as Macq. had done in 

 1843) Bleph. Q for the male; Lipon. Q, with its dichoptic head, 

 becarae his Bleph. Q. Had Schiner attentively read Macquart's 

 letterpress, he would have noticed that Macquart's Blepharocera 

 of 1844 is described as having the cf dichoptic {Liponeura cf) and 

 the female holoptic {Bleph. 9), and that Macquart expressed his 

 astonishment at such an anomaly. Instcad of which Schiner, not 

 noticing that it was an exceptional case, took the holoptic Bleph. 



^) The name of the first discoverer of specimens of the two genera? 

 Blepharocera and Liponeura bas been prescrved. It was Mr. Arnaud- 

 young lawyer and good observer, as Macquart calls him, of Le Puyi 

 a town near the source of the Loire in the Cevennes Mountains. In 

 June 1841 he took specimens of Bleph. fasciata Q. in his vicinity 

 and sent them to Macquart, who encouraged him to continue his 

 researches. The next year Arnaud took other specimens of what he 

 believed to be the same species, as they were taken in the same locality, 

 only at a higher level, while executing an aerial dance (just as I found 

 Lip.yosemite in the spray of the Yosemite Fall in 1876). These specimens 

 proved afterwards to be Lip. ein. cf., but were (1844) erroneously 

 taken by Macquart for the males of his Bleph. linib. 



11* 



