Manual of North American Diptera / by Samuel W. Williston.

  • Samuel Wendell Williston
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Manual of North American Diptera / by Samuel W. Williston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE. Twenty-four years ago the writer began the publica- tion, in the Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society, of a series of synoptic papers on the families and genera of North American Diptera. Previous to that time but seven of the sixty odd families had thus been rendered accessible to the American student in the works of Uoew and Osten Sacken. In 1888 these synopses were revised and published, with others, in a pamphlet of 88 pages entitled ‘Synopsis of the Families and Genera of North American Diptera, exclusive of the Nematocera and Muscidae.’ It contained tabular defini- tions of about three hundred and fifty genera, all at that time known from the United States in the families treated. In the succeeding eight years the writer’s acquaintance, especially with the southern forms, had been so widened that he attempted a similar review of all the North and Middle American genera, aided by Professor Aldrich in the Dolichopodidae and Mr. Snow in the Ortalidae. Re- gretfully the very large and almost chaotic families Dexiidae and Tachinidae were not included. Eight hun- dred and twenty-six genera were defined in this ‘second edition’ more or less accurately, very nearly aill of which, save those of the Dolichopodidae, had been studied by the writer in its preparation. The continued use of this work, both in America and abroad, has been very grati- fying to the author, a use that has made him the more desirous that a better and more complete edition should be prepared, one that would be of greater service to the amateur, whose interests have been paramount. For such an edition the present time seemed opportune, since the recently published catalogue of the Diptera of North
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