8 DIPTERA OF NORTH AMERICA. [PART IV. 



was used in this sense some time before Linne introduced the 

 name in his zoological system. His two genera, Culex and 

 Tipula, embrace the whole of the present Diptera nemocera, 

 but, in his arrangement, they were not placed alongside of each 

 other. Culex, on account of its long proboscis, was put in the 

 same group with Empis, Conops, etc. 



Fabricius, in his earlier works (Syst. Entomol. 1114c), followed 

 Linne in adopting these two genera and locating them on account 

 of the structure of their proboscis. 



Latreille, in 1802 (Hist. Natur. des Crustaces et des Insectes, 

 Vol. Ill), introduced the name Tipularide for the division which 

 he afterwards called Diptera nemocera, and which he distin- 

 guished on account of the structure of the antennae. The genera 

 admitted by him at that time, besides Culex and Tipula, were 

 Ceroplatus, Bibio, Simulium, Scatopse. 



While Fabricius tried to found his arrangement upon the 

 structure of the mouth, Latreille upon the structure of the 

 antennae, the comparative length of the feet and also the structure 

 of the mouth, Meigen struck in the right direction by showing 

 the importance of the venation. This character enabled him to 

 establish at once a series of genera, which have been retained 

 since. He did it first in an essay (Versuch einer neuen Gat- 

 tungseintheilung der europ. zweiflugl. Insecten, in Illiger's 

 Magazin, etc., II, p. 259, 1803), and a year later in his first 

 independent work (Klassification und Beschreibung der europ. 

 zweifl. Insecten, 1804). Without introducing any family divi- 

 sions, these works give a series of definitions of genera. The 

 following genera belonging to our family of Tipulidse are men- 

 tioned in this way by Meigen : Trichocera, Erioptera, Limonia, 

 Tipula, Nephrotoma, Plychoptera, Ctenophora. Except Tipula, 

 all of them were new. 



The fourteenth volume of Latreille's Hist. Natur. des Crustaces 

 et des Ins., containing the Diptera (the third volume, mentioned 



another chapter (p. 70) he mentions the word Tipula among the Latin names 

 commonly applied to crane-flies. In 1722 Frisch (Besckr. v. allerl. Ins. in 

 Deutschl. part IV, p. 24), speaking of the crane-flies, says : " Flies which 

 are called Tipuke by the naturalists who have written before me." Reau- 

 mur (*about 1735) also calls them "tipules." Linne quotes Frisch and 

 probably borrows the name from him. It is not impossible that Aldro- 

 vandi's figure of Ranatra has been mistaken for a crane-fly {Tipula), by 

 one of the subsequent authors. 



