ahout the third part of ihc Muscaria Schizometopa. 385 



and not without reason, to have worked in descrii^tive entomology so 

 long, withont ever settling bis nomenclature of the venation. 



Ilis large vvork was printed in 1830, but he niust have been 

 occupicd with it for many years before, bccause (in his Coup d'oeil 

 retrospectif etc. Ann. Soc. Ent. 184(), p. 349) he gives 182r) as the 

 date of the presentation of the manuscript to the Academy of Sciences, 

 Betwecn 1830 and his death he was incessantly at work on preparing: 

 Les Dipteres des environs de Paris. The Preface (Avant-propos) of 

 this, his posthumous work, written less than three months before his 

 death, gives an eloquent account of his labours, his hopes and his 

 dread of leaving it unfinished. 



The impossible task he had undertaken, to base the Classification 

 of the imago's on the mode of life of the larvae, was doomed to 

 failure. His rupture with Macquart became a public one after the 

 publication of the second volunie of Macquart's Hist. Nat. Dipt. 

 (1835). Macquart in this work absolutely ignores Robineau; his 

 name appears only in the list of abbreviations, and is also connected 

 with some of the new species, published by Robineau (for instance 

 in the genera Myopa, Zodion). Macquart quite unceremoniously 

 changes some of the generic names adopted by him (for instance Stachy- 

 nia for Dalmania). Robineau criticised Macquart, and called his 

 volume a mere compilation (in the Mem. sur tro'is esp, de Malaco- 

 mydes, Annales Soc. Ent. Fr. 1841, p. 251, and Notice sur l'Herbine 

 des Lys, ibid. p. 263). Mac(iuart replied (Ann. etc. 1842, p. 

 1G5 — 170) very properly that when he worked at his second volunie, 

 he preferred to follow the generally introduced System, to the inno- 

 vations of Robineau; but that nevertheless, he had found inuch 

 profit in the study of his work, without adopting all his conclusions. 

 He charactcrizes the book of Robineau as rendering very difficult 

 the determination of the genera and species. Robineau published 

 another rejoinder against Macquart in his: „Coup d'oeil retrospectif 

 sur quelques points de l'entomologie actuelle" (Annales etc. 184G, 

 p. 347—358). 



Robineau seems finally to have become a bete noire among 

 the official scicntists in Paris. It became the fashion to ignore him; 

 ambitious young men werc afraid to mention his name in their pu- 

 blications, for fear of incurring the displeasure of the authorities. 

 Professor A. Giard in a very straightforward article entitled: „De 

 Tinfluence nefaste des prix de TAcademie" (Bullet. Scientif. du D6pt. 

 du Nord, Aout — Sept. 1878, p. 214 — 217) refers especially to one of 

 the earlier Avorks of Robineau, which he calls very remarkable, 



XXXVIII. Heft IV, 25 



