58 Psyche [April 



descriptions and excellent figures, reveals on closer scrutiny a 

 great many partly almost incredible mistakes, the most curious of 

 which concern what he calls Gnophomyia O. S. and which is not a 

 genus at all, but a mixture of heterogeneous forms belonging to 

 several widely different divisions. It is unnecessary to publish 

 my numerous notes on his Tipulidse, as they are almost identical 

 with the remarks quite recently made by Alexander (Ins. Insc. 

 Menstr., 1913, p. 118-120). 



8. In my above-quoted paper (p. 584) I said, "Meigen did not 

 state in his paper [of 1800] that he accepted the binominal nomen- 

 clature, and there is nothing in the paper indicating that he did 

 so. Admittedly generic names in works of this class cannot be 

 taken into consideration." Bezzi (in a letter to me) objects to 

 this, and I now find that the same objections have been made al- 

 ready by Coquillett (Canad. Ent., J 908, p. 457) who wrote: 

 "There is, first, the name of the proposed new genus in proper 

 Latin form, then a description of the genus, followed by a state- 

 ment of the number of species known to the author as belonging 

 to the genus." All this is true, save that Meigen did not state the 

 number of species for all his genera, but when Coquillett goes on 

 to say that "the author, therefore, had a correct idea of binomial 

 nomenclature, and, so far as he went, he applied it in this paper," 

 we must take exception to this conclusion. What has Meigen's 

 statement of the number of species belonging to some of his genera 

 to do with binominal nomenclature? There are other authors 

 (after 1758) who, though well aware of the binominal nomencla- 

 ture, did not accept it but continued to designate their species by 

 short diagnoses instead of specific names. Among these authors 

 was even a fellow-countryman of Linnaeus himself, who described 

 many new species of insects without specific names. Briefly, the 

 facts are these: we know that Meigen accepted the binominal 

 nomenclature in 1803 and 1804, but we do not know if he did so 

 in 1800, and the code forbids the recognition of names in such 

 works. If we do accept these names, we can a& well go back to 

 the genera of the pre-Linnean period and revive them. To say 

 the least, there are no cogent reasons why these names should 

 be accepted, and such reasons failing we can safely follow Meigen's 

 own lead and quit them for ever. 



