NO. 12 FLYING APPARATUS OF BLOW-FLY — RITTER 3 



ciple that topographic relationship should be considered as of the 

 hrst importance. In cases where this was not quite practicable, as, 

 for example, in the case of the middle pieces of the wing-joint. I 

 gave to the entire group a collective designation of a topographic 

 character, and distinguished the separate parts by means of letters 

 or figures. For new terms I mostly used Greek stems with Latin 

 terminations. 



And now I wish to thank most heartily my honored instructor. 

 Professor von Lendenfeld, for his valuable advice and suggestions. 

 Also I would thank his assistant, Dr. Emanuel Trojan, for his ever 

 ready assistance and his interest in my work. 



II. HISTORICAL SURVEY 



I found in the literature but very few papers on the flying appa- 

 ratus of the Diptera. The principal contributions to this subject 

 are the work of Kimckel d'Herculais on the Syrphidse (1875-1881), 

 in which, however, the flying apparatus is treated quite incidentally, 

 Hammond's work on the thorax of CaUiphora vomitoria (1879), 

 and the monograph on the blow-fly by Lowne (1890- 1895), in both 

 of which the flying apparatus is also described very superficially. 



The historical development of our knowledge of the means of 

 flight of insects in general is summarized below. 



The first notable v/orks on this subject were published in the first 

 half of the nineteenth century. At that time it was chiefly the 

 French who concerned themselves with this subject, especially La- 

 treille (1819), Chabrier (1822), Audouin (1824), and Strauss- 

 Diirkheim (1828). At about the same time there appeared the 

 works of Kirby and Spfence (1823-1833) and Burmeister (1832). 

 All these works treat of the entire insect world or at least of a large 

 portion of it. Only in the second half of the nineteenth, century 

 and later have special works on the organs of flight of insects been 

 published. The most important of these are von Lendenf eld's work 

 on the flight of the dragon-flies (1881), Luks' articles on the mus- 

 culature of insects (1883), Amans' anatomical and mechanical studies 

 on the organs of flight in insects (1883), Adolph's description of 

 the venation of the wings of Diptera (1885), Redtenbacher's com- 

 parative studies (1886), Alarey's (1869- 1872), Pettigrew's (1872- 

 1873), and von Lendenfeld's mechanico-physiological works, and 

 the exact description of the thorax of Gryllus domesticus by Voss 

 (1905)- 



