PREFACE. 



In offering this little volume to the public of youthful 

 readers the author wishes to say that it has no claim to 

 the completeness of a scientific treatise, but is merely the 

 result of a summer's rambling through the woods and 

 meadows of New England. It is, however, accurate as 

 far as it goes. The illustrations have been drawn and 

 engraved, with great care and accuracy, by Mr. Albert 

 C. Russell, of Boston, from specimens in the author's col- 

 lection, and all the descriptions have been carefully studied 

 from nature. The volume is published with the hope that 

 it will awaken in boys and girls a greater interest in the 

 study of a delightful branch of natural history ; and the 

 author will be fully satisfied if other little folks find in 

 reading it as much pleasure as it has already given to a 

 little boy named Tom, for whom it was written, and to 

 whom it is fondly dedicated by his 



MAMMA. 



