FIELD BOOK OF INSECTS. 



its time in the work. I thank, also, che following friends 

 and associates for helpful suggestions and criticisms: 

 H. G. Barber, concerning Hemiptera; J. Bequaert, Dip- 

 tera and Hymenoptera; Wm. T. Davis, Odonata and 

 Orthoptera; E. P. Felt, galls; C. W. Leng and A. J. 

 Mutchler, Coleoptera; F. E. Watson, Lepidoptera; and 

 Herbert F. Schwarz, who kindly acted as a "lay 

 critic." 



About Names At the afore - m entioned institution we 

 were once severely criticized by an excitable 

 visiting school-marm because we had labeled a number of 

 exhibition specimens with their scientific names but had 

 neglected to give English names to them. I had been 

 trying, for some time, an interesting experiment on 

 several children with whom I had been rather intimately 

 associated (they were my own). The first move was to 

 tell one of them that the name of a certain burly bee she 

 saw in the garden was Bombus. About a week later 

 there were near-tears because a neighbor insisted it was a 

 Bumble-bee. Matters were smoothed over by explaining 

 that Bombus was the real name for such bees and Bumble- 

 bee was a nickname. There are thousands of kinds of 

 native-born, United States insects which have been really- 

 named but not nicknamed. I have made an effort in this 

 book to record the real names correctly and have given 

 the nicknames when I knew them; when I did not, I 

 usually have left you the pleasure of inventing new ones. 

 Often real names are no longer or harder than the "com- 

 mon" names. An insect is considered to be christened 

 when some student, who has found a kind which he thinks 

 has never been named, publishes a description of it and 

 gives it a properly formed name. If somebody had 

 previously named the same kind, the prior name usually 

 holds. There is a complicated code governing the matter, 

 and the changing of scientific names, which has so worried 

 many readers, is caused by the discovery and rectification 

 of violations of this code. The shaking-down process is 

 painful but ultimate stability is hoped for and, withal, I 

 feel sure that the "real" names are better than the best 

 nicknames. 



