INTRODUCTION. 



The story of the development of the literature concerning 

 American insects is of remarkable interest. While we have had 

 no great literary masters like Huber, Fabre, or Maeterlinck to cele- 

 brate in immortal prose the marvels of insect life, we have had such 

 an army of workers in the fields as no other country has ever known. 

 The results of their devoted labors are so scattered in innumerable 

 annals, bulletins, reports, and proceedings, that it requires the ser- 

 vices of a bibliographer to bring them all to light. But fortunately 

 there are a few treasured volumes in which men and women of 

 training and vision have brought together in a form readily to be 

 understood by the layman the more important results of these re- 

 searches of the specialists. 



In this limited treasury of insect literature Doctor Howard's 

 Insect Book has long held an important place, and it is fortunate 

 that this popular edition is being published to diffuse more generally 

 our knowledge of the life histories of the interesting insects of which 

 it treats. That the record should be written by the man who has 

 been the chief inspiration and guide in our advancing knowledge is 

 a hazard of good fortune for which we all may be duly grateful. 



The time has long since passed when within the compass of a 

 single book one could tell the story of existing knowledge of insect 

 lives as it was told nearly a century ago in the classic pages of 

 "Insects Injurious to Vegetation" by Thadeus William Harris. 

 This volume, which has been the first text book of generations of 

 students, covered all the orders and told most of what was then 

 known of American Insects — a feat which was possible only be- 

 cause of the limitations of that knowledge. Doctor Howard has 

 wisely eliminated from his scheme of treatment two of the most 

 important orders — one of the Beetles and the other of the Moths 

 and Butterflies— in order to give fuller information concerning the 

 others. And, fortunately, among these others are many of the most 

 curious and interesting forms of insect life. In some of these 

 groups the author has long held unchallenged preeminence as our 

 leading specialist. And so it happens that he is able to give to 

 many pages of this book the vividness of description and directness 



