PREFACE . 



THIS introduction to the study of insects is designed to . 

 teach the beginner the elements of entomology, and to serve 

 as a guide to the more elaborate treatises and memoirs which 

 the advanced student may wish to consult. Should the 

 book, imperfect as the author feels it to be, prove of some 

 service in inducing others to study this most interesting and 

 useful branch of natural history, the object of the writer will 

 have been fully attained. 



In order to make it of value to farmers and gardeners, 

 whose needs the writer has kept in view, and that it may be 

 used as a text book in our agricultural colleges, concise ac- 

 counts have been given of insects injurious or beneficial to 

 vegetation, or those in any way affecting human interests. 



When the localities of the insects are not precisely given, 

 it is to be understood that they occur in the Eastern Atlantic 

 States from Maine to Pennsylvania, and the more northern of 

 the Western States. When the family names occur in the 

 text they are put in spaced Italics, to distinguish them from 

 the generic and specific names which are Italicized in the usual 

 way. 



The succession of the suborders of the hexapodous insects 

 is that proposed by the author in 1863, and the attention of 

 zoologists is called to their division into two series of sub- 

 orders, which are characterized on page 104. To the first 

 and highest may be applied Leach's term METABOLIA, as 

 they all agree in having a perfect metamorphosis ; for the 

 second and lower series the term HETEROMETABOLIA is pro- 



