ENTOMOLOGY IN OUTLINE CLASSIFICATION. 11 



common with all other butterflies and are grouped with them in the 

 order Lepidoptera. 



Really, the first four of these stages concern us but little. We all 

 know to what kingdom an animal belongs, equally to what subkingdom. 

 Neither the branch nor the class will bother us much, although the 

 knowledge of very many people stops at this and they confound many 

 of the other members of the Arthropoda with the class Hexapoda, and 

 regard spiders, centipedes, scerpions, and, in fact, all things that creep 

 or crawl, and are not beasts, birds, reptiles, or fishes, with insects. It 

 is after we have decided that the object of our interest is an insect that 

 the trouble begins. It is sometimes very difhcult to decide to what 

 order it belongs. It is much to know this, and much more to know the 

 family. Beyond this point it is unnecessary for the average entomologist 

 to go. In the case of our more common insects, however, it is well to 

 be able to recognize them by their generic and specific names, and with 

 an acquaintance with the family to which they belong, they can readily 

 be traced to their species. 



It is sometimes necessary to enter into closer subdivisions, and, to 

 this end, a higher and a lower section is provided, designated by the 

 prefix super or siib, as sw^er-family and 6'w6-family, classing them 

 above or below the regular family as their characteristics seem to 

 indicate. 



Dismissing the greater and more general divisions, we now come to 

 the orders, and here we are met with confusion. It would seem as 

 though science, or at least scientists, instead of making matters clear, 

 as they should, take a delight in confusing. A student no sooner gets 

 the system of nomenclature of a science firmly fixed in his memory, or 

 the classification properly versed in his mind, than some new authority 

 steps forward, and, in order to keep up with the times, the student 

 has to unlearn all and learn over again. 



There are several groups or orders of insects, ranging from seven to 

 thirty-four, according to the authority. The commonly accepted num- 

 ber of orders has been seven. Westwood gives us thirteen, Comstock 

 makes it nineteen, and Kellogg, the latest authority, gives us nineteen, 

 but makes changes in Comstock's names and arrangement. The differ- 

 ences are in the minor groups or species. 



There are six well-defined orders: Orthoptera, Hemiptera, Cole- 

 optera, Diptera, Hymenoptera, and Lepidoptera. Then there is the 

 seventh, the Neuroptera. Now it is an easy matter to assign an insect 

 to any one of the six when it belongs there, but there are numbers of 

 insects which do not clearly belong to any one of these, and the order 

 Neuroptera has furnished a dumping-ground for most of them. When 

 the entomologist found an insect which he could not clearly locate, he 

 called it a Neuropteron, and let it go at that. This will answer as well, 



