Diptera: Nemocera vera, N. anomala and Ißremochaeta. 465 



deutung für die Systeniatic hätten" etc. („tlie incredible error of some 

 entomographers [sie!] who maintain that larvae have no importance 

 in tlie Classification" etc.). Such an assertion I never made anywhere. 

 Further on, Brauer calls ine an entomographer and catalogue- 

 maker, people „wlio have no right to permit themselves, without 

 „any foundation, changes in the System, and to thrust aside uncere- 

 „moniously the opinions of entomologists of greater authority than 

 they" („welche sich, ohne weitere Begründung, Aenderungen im System 

 erlauben, und Ansichten gewiegter Entomologen bei Seite setzen"). 



Whenever vituperation begins, one may be sure that arguments 

 are exhausted. I flatter myself that my arrangement of the Nemocera 

 is quite satisfactory both as regards the imagos, and, as far as 

 possible, the larvae. And I am convinced at the same time that 

 Brauer's arrangement, and especially bis „Eucephala" form an 

 incredible („unglaublich" to use bis own expression) and incongruous 

 medley, so much as regards both the imagos and the larvae. 



Larva, as a name of one of the early stages of insects, was 

 introduced by Linne, and means a mask, as known to everybody. 

 The name was very well chosen; the larva disguises the systematic 

 Position of its future imago; among the diptera it does more than 

 that: by various adaptive contrivances it offen disguises its own 

 Position among its congeners. In many cases we succeed in discovering 

 generic characters even among larvae. Still there are cases, like 

 Mycetobia and RJu/phus, Anopheles and Dixa (compare above, 

 p. 418), where two almost similar larvae produce imagos belonging 

 to entirely different families. Such cases are as yet unsolved problems, 

 Brauer ignored them entirely. He, apparently, never saw the larva 

 of Rhyplius (see above, p. 457); and the larva of ÄnopJieles he 

 mistook for that oi Duva, and was corrected by Meinert (Eucephale 

 Myggellarver, p. 452). 



XXXVir. Heft IV. 30 



