46 Psi/che [April 



Therefore, instead of worrying over just whieh of the genera can be 

 identified, it will be vastly better for the present to ignore entirely the 

 Nouvelle Classification. It is absurd rigidly to apply modern rules 

 of nomenclature to the works of the early writers, when as in this 

 instance no good can be subserved, and a most confusing and "com- 

 plete revolution in dipterological nomenclature" would result, a 

 condition that Dr. Hendel seems eagerly to have hoped for. It is 

 commendable to make use of the law of priority when stability and 

 permanence will be guaranteed, but in the present case it is too risky 

 to accept Dr. Hendel's views and make the wholesale changes he has 

 suggested. Dr. Stiles has remarked that "neither the commission nor 

 the congress has any power to force zoologists and others to accept 

 the International Rules." I believe that my dipterist fellow workers 

 should feel that one such occasion confronts them, if rules are to be 

 construed, or misconstrued, to bolster up the once-discarded names. 



With this digression we may disregard the name Corijueta, and take 

 up the name Tachydromia. As just mentioned, Meigen assigned 

 Musca cursiians Fabricius and cimicoides Fabricius to his genus. 

 The first of these was an erroneous determination which was afterwards 

 named major by Zetterstedt. Cimicoides Fabricius is a synonym of 

 arrogans Linneus, but Meigen was confused in his identification here 

 too, as a part of the specimens he thought were cimicoides he afterward 

 described as connexa. Meigen had therefore three species before him, 

 of which two were undescribed, and the third had previously been 

 named arrogans by Linneus. Obviously, according to modern rulings, 

 the type of Tachydromia must be selected from these three, and as 

 arrogans was the only described species among Meigen's material, 

 that species would probably be construed as the type. But neither 

 arrogans nor connexa has the middle femora enlarged, nor are their 

 middle tibiae spurred. Therefore they disagree with the only salient 

 point of the diagnosis. For that reason, according to our present 

 ideas, neither would have been selected as the type, and the honor of 

 serving as type of Tachydromia should have been bestowed on Meigen's 

 cursiians {major Zett.). The old genus has been dismembered, the 

 separated genera have received their types, and our present ideals 

 have not been fulfilled, because of the everlasting blundering between 

 personal whims and priority laws. 



Article 30 of the Code states: "If the original type of a genus was 

 not indicated, the author who first subdivides the genus may apply the 



