OPINIONS RENDERED BY THE INTERNATIONAL 



COMMISSION ON ZOOLOGICAL 



NOMENCLATURE 



Opinions 98 to 104 



OPINION 98 



Brauer and Bergenstamm 



SUMMARY. — Rigidly constiued, Brauer and Bergenstamm (1889 to 1894) 

 did not fix the types for the older generic names, except in the cases where 

 they distinctly state that the species mentioned is the type of the genus. 



Statement of case. — Dr. Charles If. T. Townsend submitted the 

 following case for opinion : 



Friedrich Brauer and Julius Kdlcn von Bergeiistaiiini publislied in tlie Denk- 

 schriften der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, from 1889 to 1894, 

 an elaborate work entitled " Vorarljeiten zu einer Monographie der Muscaria 

 schizometopa (exclusive Anthomyidae)," in four parts, comprising a total of 

 494 royal quarto pages and 11 royal quarto plates containing some 310 faithful 

 drawings representing fully 300 distinct genera, the whole illustrating the 

 authors' conceptions of the genera treated. This is a monumental work wholly 

 unapproached in character by any work ever puljlished on the Muscoidea. It 

 treats the fauna of the world, giving the results of an exhaustive intensive 

 study of external adult characters. The autiiors went as far as it is possible 

 to go on external adult characters alone. Synopses of groups and genera 

 embodying full diagnoses are given in both German and Latin. In each case 

 the generic diagnosis is accompanied 1jy one or more specific names, usually 

 only one, and in that case immediately following the generic name, indicating 

 the species which the authors employed to typify and illustrate their concept 

 of a genus. In some cases the word type follows the specific name, but in most 

 cases it is omitted. The word type, when it occurs, may in some cases be hekl 

 as referring eitlier to the type specimen of the species cited or the species itself 

 in the sense of a genotype designation. In some cases the specific name imme- 

 diately following a genus represents a species not originally included, but in a 

 few of these cases an originally included species is also cited in or after the 

 diagnosis, either following or preceding the generic name. It seems plain that 

 in every case the intention of the autlu)rs, in citing tlie specilic nanie or names, 

 was to designate either the t\i)e species alone, or several typical species includ- 

 ing the type species thereby fixing their conception of the genus. 



The same authors pnblislied in the Verhandlungen der k. k. /oologisch-botam- 

 schen Gesellschaft in Wien, in 1893, a paper with exactly the same title as tlie 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 73, No. 5 



