62 DEER. 
and Lipoptera cervi, Prof. Loew (who makes use of the revised spelling, 
namely, Lipoptera, in his paper) observes:—‘‘'The name Lipoptera cervt 
is the most suitable, and at the same time the only one to which the 
insect under consideration is entitled.” 
In the same series (i.e. ‘Hnt. Zeit. zu Stettin,’ 1850, p. 407) are 
some further observations * of the synonymy under the heading ‘‘ Still 
a word on the Lipoptera cervi,’’ in which Prof. von Siebold writes as 
follows :—‘ Through the interesting remarks of Herren Schaum and 
Loew, again carefully brought forward on Ornithobia pallida in this 
publication, I have now convinced myself that it really is no other 
than a winged Lipoptera cervi, Nitzsch. But I must go still further, 
and maintain that the Hemobora pallipes of Curtis is also only a winged 
Lipoptera cervi.”’ |—(C. Th. von Siebold.) 
Not being myself a Greek scholar, I do not give the subject in 
extenso ; but it is before all of us that the word ‘ ptera”’ is constantly 
used entomologically to signify wings, especially in the names of the 
insect orders, as, for instance, in the words Lepidoptera=scale-winged, 
Thysanoptera=fringe-winged, and so on. And in this case there is 
a most obvious propriety in the word ‘ Lipoptera,” that which looses 
wings, being used to express the unusual habit of the males of this 
insect dropping or removing their wings. On the other hand, if we 
have instead of this descriptive word, with an ‘‘r”’ as its penultimate 
letter, the word “ Lipoptena,” with an ‘‘n” as its penultimate letter, 
we thus get a word which, in its meaning (not of wingless) but ‘ hair- 
less,’ or “childless,” is entirely inappropriate to this insect, which 
assuredly cannot be said to be without progeny, nor to anyone who 
will examine the almost bristly besetting of its hind legs, and to some 
degree of the abdomen, will it appear hairless {; and for this reason, 
as the word has been used by so many German writers, I have thought 
I might be justified in again using it. 
This Lipoptera cervi (von Siebold, &e.) is (like our common Forest 
Fly of the New Forest) one of the Pupipara, that is, it multiplies by 
* “Noch ein Wort iiber Lipoptera cervi,” von Prof. C. Th. von Siebold, in 
Breslau. 
+ For figure in a fairly accessible work of L. cervi under this synonym, see 
plate xx. fig. 4 in vol. ii. of ‘Ins. Brit. (Diptera),’ by F. Walker. This figure is by 
Prof. Westwood after Curtis, the fly being about four times magnified; and if the 
neuration of the wings is considered simply as the long vein near the fore edge, a 
shorter longitudinal vein nearer the hinder edge, and a transverse vein joining the 
two, without reference to the minor slight indications, it gives an excellent idea of 
the wings of the L. cervi before me under a one-inch object-glass, as figured from 
life, much magnified, at p. 60. 
{ As the above points seem to me to be of great interest, I have ventured to 
draw attention to them on the authority of the entomologists referred to, with sub- 
mission to some friends conversant with the Greek derivations. 
