282 [Decunibur. 



At the same time thfe abort diagnosis be gives, " alis albis, punctis 

 duobus fuscis," is in contradiction witb Meigen's statement (/. c. p. 5, 

 line 4 from top), "Die Fliigel sind ungefleckt." It is in vain tbat 

 Dr. Ficalbi attempts to explain tbis disagreement by supposing that 

 Fabricius had but " rubbed " specimens (" Fabricius avessi in mano 

 exemplari scadenti, in quali le maccbie piccole non si scorgevano ;" 

 I. c, 1899, p. 93, at bottom). I repeat tbat Fabricius bad no specimens 

 at all, because, if he had any, he would have mentioned vi'here they 

 came from. He borrowed his data from Meigen (1804), and, in doing 

 it, committed the blunder of giving a wrong description of the wings. 



Dr. Ficalbi was not aware that Fabricius' Systeona Antliatorum 

 (1805) is nothing but a very careless compilation, and therefore en- 

 tirely untrustworthy. What Fabricius did in preparing it was merely 

 to copy specific names from publications of other authors, and to 

 compose short diagnoses from the data he found in them, without any 

 further verification. Such at least is the case with the Diptera 

 Nemocera, which I have had occasion to examine critically. In my 

 Synonymica about Tipulidce (Berl. Ent. Z., 1894, p. 263), in which I 

 have attempted to clear up the various interpretations by different 

 authors of Tipula ocellaris, Linne, I said : "In a list of synonymies 

 like this, Fabricius's successive references to Tip. ocellaris, Linn., 

 must be entirely ignored, * * * as they are merely copied from 

 earlier publications, and do not represent any scientific concept 

 whatever." Three such successive references to European Tipulidce 

 with ocellate spots (Fab., Syst. Antl., p. 29, Nos. 26, 27, 28) belong 

 to this category. I have stated in the same paper that the same 

 criticism is applicable to Fabricius's references to Tipula annulata, 

 Linn. (0. S. in Berl. E. Z., 1894, pp. 256, 257). 



The correct name, therefore, of the common Anopheles of Northern 

 and Central Europe is Anopheles macuUpennis, Meigen, adopted by 

 Loew in his paper on this genus in Dipt. Beitr., I, p. 4 (1845). But 

 in the synonymy adduced by Loew in the same paper (p. 3, line 8 from 

 bottom) the reference to Culex claviqer, Fab. (1805) should be 

 omitted, because Loew was not aware of the absolute untrustworthi- 

 ness of Fabricius's Syst. Antl. (1805), upon which I have passed 

 censure above. 



In connection with the part played by A. macuUpennis as a 

 malarial propagator, it may not be amiss to reproduce here an obser- 

 vation on the pernicious effect of its bite, which has been described 

 seventy years ago, in an out-of-the-way publication, by the now almost 

 forgotten, but meritorious dipterologist, Ruthe. 



