INTRODUCTION. 



most of the insects which attract his attention and to find 

 the answer to most of the questions he is tempted to ask 

 the specialist. It is not intended to be a manual of 

 economic entomology although most of our relatively few 

 injurious insects are included. It is intended to be an 

 introductory field book to commonly observed species 

 and the larger groups of insects. Although the species 

 mentioned are, for the most part, inhabitants of north- 

 eastern United States, many of them have a wide distri- 

 bution in this country and some of them even in other 

 continents. I hope, therefore, and especially since the 

 generalities are more important than concrete illustrations, 

 that this little book may be useful to laymen "wherever 

 dispersed." You can provide your own concrete illus- 

 trations, once you have the general idea. I have been 

 governed in the choice of subject matter, not so much by 

 what I think ought to be in a book on insects as by what 

 the public seem to want to know, judging by the letters 

 received and personal inquiries made at an institution 

 whose motto is "For the people, for education, for science." 

 Really the title might be Answers to Common Questions 

 about Insects. 



We are, all of us, immensely indebted 



Thanks 



to those who have gone before us. The 

 mass of knowledge about insects, great in reality but small 

 in comparison with our ignorance, has been accumulated, 

 bit by bit, by the laboring man in his Sunday strolls and 

 by the highly trained investigator. Much of this has been 

 told over and over; none of us can hope to prove all of the 

 statements. I have drawn freely on books and papers, 

 too numerous to mention, for facts which I did not pre- 

 viously know some of which I have already forgotten. 

 This book is frankly a compilation and will be useful in 

 proportion to the skill with which the selections were 

 made and put together. The new illustrations, about 

 700, have been made by Mrs. E. L. Beutenmuller, largely 

 from specimens in the American Museum of Natural 

 History; and those concerned with collecting methods 

 and galls are copied from papers published by that institu- 

 tion, which has also kindly permitted me to use much of 



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