INTRODUCTION 



The genus Sarcophaga was established by Mei- 

 gen in 1826; he described thirty species, but in the 

 manner of his time did not single out one of these as 

 type of the genus. Westwood in 1840 designated 

 or mentioned the Musca carnaria of Linn^us (in- 

 cluded by Meigen) as the type species. Some ob- 

 jection to Westwood's designations in general has 

 been raised by Hopkins, on the ground that he lim- 

 ited himself to British species. However, the same 

 designation in Sarcophaga was made twice more 

 within a few years, by Zetterstedt and Rondani. 

 Carnaria has been universally accepted as type since 

 that period.* 



Although Meigen in founding the genus gave a 

 fairly full and accurate account of the genitalia of 

 the male, these were little studied or entirely ignored 

 for many years afterward. The numerous European 

 species were never clearly differentiated until Pan- 

 delle published his remarkable revision in 1896; in 

 this he identified 63 species and varieties and recogniz- 

 ably described them, including the genitalic char- 

 acters of each. Even then, the lack of illustrations 

 in his work prevented immediate recognition of the 

 brilliant success of the method, and it was a decade 

 before it made an appreciable impression. Since that 

 time, however, the group has been thoroughly studied 

 in the same manner by other European dipterists, and 

 its classification for that fauna is on a far more satis- 



♦References for this paragraph: 



Meigen, Rystematische Beschreibung europ. Zweifl. lus., vol. v, 



14, 1826. 

 Westwood, Introduction to the Modern Classification of Insects, ii, 



Appendix, 140. 1,840. 

 Hopkins. Proceedings U. S. National Museum, vol. 48, 115, 1914. 

 Zetterstedt, Diptera Scandinaviae. iv, p. 1281, 184.5. 

 Rondani, Dipterologiae italicae Prodonius, i, 86, 1856. 



