370 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



MEIGEN'S FIRST PAPER ON DIPTERA. 



RY J. M. ALDRICH, MOSCOW, IDAHO. 



Johann Wilhelm Meigen (1763-1845), was, says Schiner, "Incon- 

 testibly the first and greatest dipterologist of his time and all times." He 

 had a good perception of generic characters, and had perhaps the first 

 really comprehensive collection of European Diptera ever made upon 

 which to exercise his talents. Added to these favouring conditions, he 

 must also have had immense patience and tenacity to carry out througli 

 twenty years of almost continuous publication his monumental work. 

 "Systematische Beschreibung der bekannten europiiischen zweifliigligen 

 Insekten." 



Such being the prominence and reputation of Meigen, it is not sur- 

 prising that considerable attention should be given to anything written by 

 him. The paper from which many of his principal genera have been 

 dated, and which most entomologists have supposed to be his earliest one, 

 is entitled, "Versuch einer neuen Gattungs Eintheilung der europaischen 

 zweifliigligen Insekten," and was published in Illiger's Magazin fiir 

 Insektenkunde, Vol. II, pp. 259-281, in the year 1803. The article has 

 a page of introduction by the editor, Illiger, calling attention to the fact 

 that Meigen had already prepared a large amount of material for a com- 

 prehensive work on Diptera, and bespeaking for him the necessary 

 financial support for its publication. The article itself contains no 

 explanatory matter by Meigen, but merely gives short descriptions of 114 

 genera of Diptera, mostly new, with one or more typical or illustrative 

 species mentioned in connection with most of them ; a considerable num- 

 ber, however, have no species mentioned. 



That Meigen had already published another paper with a similar 

 scope is nowhere mentioned or suggested in the 1803 article, but has been 

 known for many years. Hagen lists it in his "Bibliotheca Entomologica," 

 although he had not seen it. It has been referred to once or twice in 

 literature, but has remained practically unknown until recently ; now, 

 however, Mr. Fr. Hendel has published an extended article on it in the 

 "Verhandlungen der kaiserlichen-koniglichen zoologischen-botanischen 

 Gesellschaft in Wien," 1908, 43-69. He quotes the generic descriptions 

 in full and gives his ideas of their meaning. His own copy and the one in 

 Osten Sacken's collection are the only ones known to Hendel. As Hagen 

 mentions the paper as containing forty pages, it is evident that Hendel 

 does not give it entire, but only the part which is important for 



October, igoS 



