46 Psyche {April 
Therefore, instead of worrying over just which of the genera can be 
identified, it will be vastly better for the present to ignore entirely the 
Nouvelle Classification. It is absurd rigidly to apply modern rules 
of nomenclature to the works of the early writers, when as in this 
‘instance no good can be subserved, and a most confusing and “com- 
plete revolution in dipterological nomenclature’ would result, a 
condition that Dr. Hendel seems eagerly to have hoped for. It is 
commendable to make use of the law of priority when stability and 
permanence will be guaranteed, but in the present case it 1s too risky 
to accept Dr. Hendel’s views and make the wholesale changes he has 
suggested. Dr. Stiles has remarked that “neither the commission nor 
the congress has any power to force zoologists and others to accept 
the International Rules.” I believe that my dipterist fellow workers 
should feel that one such occasion confronts them, if rules are to be 
construed, or misconstrued, to bolster up the once-discarded names. 
With this digression we may disregard the name Coryneta, and take 
up the name Tachydromia. As just mentioned, Meigen assigned 
Musca cursitans Fabricius and cimicoides Fabricius to his genus. 
The first of these was an erroneous determination which was afterwards 
named major by Zetterstedt. Cimicoides Fabricius is a synonym of 
arrogans Linneus, but Meigen was confused in his identification here 
too, as a part of the specimens he thought were czmicoides he afterward 
described as connexa. Meigen had therefore three species before him, 
of which two were undescribed, and the third had previously been 
named arrogans by Linneus. Obviously, according to modern rulings, 
the type of Tachydromia must be selected from these three, and as 
arrogans was the only described species among Meigen’s material, 
that species would probably be construed as the type. But neither 
arrogans nor connexa has the middle femora enlarged, nor are their 
middle tibiae spurred. Therefore they disagree with the only salient 
point of the diagnosis. For that reason, according to our present 
ideas, neither would have been selected as the type, and the honor of 
serving as type of Tachydromia should have been bestowed on Meigen’s 
cursittans (major Zett.). The old genus has been dismembered, the 
separated genera have received their types, and our present ideals 
have not been fulfilled, because of the everlasting blundering between 
personal whims and priority laws. 
Article 30 of the Code states: “If the original type of a genus was 
not indicated, the author who first subdivides the genus may apply the 
