AMERICAN DIPTERA. 269 



inclinee, garnie a la base d'un poil simple. Tete hemi- 

 spherique. Ailes croisees, obtuses. 1 espece." Upon re- 

 ferring to his later paper* it is seen that the descriptions 

 of the genus Microcera is very similar to that of Dorilas, 

 still he names no type. Some years later, in 1824, he statest 

 that his genus Microcera is antedated by Latreille's Pipun- 

 culus. This fixes Microcera, throwing it into synonomy 

 under Pipuncuhis ; but it is only upon the similarity exist- 

 ing between the descriptions of Dorilas and Microcera that 

 leads one to consider them synonymous. 



The only species of this family known at the time of 

 Meigen's early paper was Musca cephalotes Bosc.,+ which 

 seems to be a true Pipuncuhis, and was used later by Latri- 

 elle§ as the type of his genus Pipuncuhis \\ under the name 

 of Pipuncuhis campestris Latr. It may be supposed that 

 Meigen had this species before him at the time of his writing 

 the first paper ; but his description of Dorilas seems to apply 

 more truly to a species which would now go under Verrallia ; 

 the head of that genus being truly hemispherical, while that 

 of Pipuncuhis is almost spherical. Later on Meigen said 

 that Fabricius had shown him a specimen of the genus Pipun- 

 cuhis in 1804, but he, Meigen, makes no mention of possess- 

 ing one. So we are not certain that Meigen did erect his 

 genus Dorilas upon a true Pipuncuhis. 



As to whether Dorilas can be admitted under the rules of 

 nomenclature has been discussed by Prof. J. M. Aldrich^j 

 and Mr. D. W. Coquillett,** from which it seems to be a 

 question that can only be settled by the Committee on 

 Zoological Nomenclature. So it is seen there is no cer- 

 tainty, but much guess work, which is, to my mind, suffi- 

 cient cause for disregarding, for the present, the use of 

 Dorilas Meigen, as a valid genus. Kertesz, in his Catalogus 



* Illiger's Magazine, II, 273, 1803. 



t Syst. Beschr. Eur. Zweifl. Ins., IV, 19. 



% Journ. d'hist. Nat., Paris, II, 55, PI. 28, Figs. 5-7, 1792. 



\ Hist. Nat. Cms. et Ins., IV, 392, 1805. 



|| Loc. tit., Ill, 463, 1805. 



fl Can. Ent., XL, 370 and 432, 1908. 



** Loc. tit., 457. 



TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC, XXXVI. DECEMBER, 1910. 



