Prof. Mik's (jemts Paracroccra (Cyrtidae) etc. 327 



by proposiiig iiew names for such subdivisions, of courso witb tbcir 

 mihi appended, but without adding anything in the way of new cha- 

 racters, which would justify such an interference. This is an impro- 

 pricty which borders on piracy. Tho great weakness of Mik for 

 appending bis name to new genera lias, more than once, induced hini 

 to commit such indiscretions. 



In the Neue Beitr. VIII, p. 70 (1861) Loew said : „Our two Eu- 

 ropean species of Liancalus show several important differencos. 

 Liancalns laaistris Scop. lias four bristles on the scutollum and 

 the appendages of tlic hypopygium are short, hairy lamels, whilo 

 Liancalus virens Scop. has six bristles on the scutelluni and the 

 external hairy hypopygial appendages are filiform. If there was a 

 large number of species of them, difficult to recognise, the aliovc- 

 indicated characters would have been sufficient for the erection of 

 two separate genera; but as only a small number of Liancalus are 

 known, such a subdivision is at present absolutely unnecessary (voll- 

 ständig überflüssig)." — 



In 1878 only three European and two N.-American species 

 were known. Now in that year Mik, in spite of Loew's warning, 

 and without giving him any credit for bis diagnosis, copied it, and 

 established the new genus Alloeoneurus for L. lacustris Scop. 

 (Mik, Dipterol. Untersuchungen, Wien 1878, p. 8). He was not awarc 

 that, the year before, I had described a Californian Liancalus, 

 which, witb regard to tho characters borrowed from the scutellum 

 and the hypopygium, holds the middle between the two subdivisions 

 indicated by Loew. L. querulus 0. S., Western Dipt. p. 318 (1877), 

 has „lamelliform" appendages of the hypopygium and six bristles on 

 the scutellum. According to Mik it would require again a new ge- 

 nus and so on! 



Mik followed the same method in establishing the genus Sym- 

 plectomorpha (Wien. Ent. Z. 1886, p. 318). In my Monograph of 

 the Tipulidae hrevipalpi (1869, p. 171) I had shown that among 

 the four known species of Symplecta, the typical species, S. puncti- 

 pennis alone has the anterior brauch of the fourth vein forked. 

 This offered Mik an occasion to publish the above named new ge- 

 nus upon the most futile characters, promising more developments 

 about a new Symplecta grata \j\\., developments which never camc! 

 (Comp, my Studies on Tipulidae II, p. 197, in the Berl. E. Z- 

 1887, where I pointed out the uselessness of this new genus.) 



