PREFACE. 



Questions of the greatest importance to the practical agri- 

 cultiirist are dependent for their solution upon an accurate 

 knowledge of the Insect Pauna of a country. As a first step 

 it is necessary to provide observers with the means of deter- 

 mining the affinities of the insects that are known to occur, 

 so that their habits, and the injurious effects which, in the 

 different stages of development, they frequently produce on 

 vegetation, may be accurately ascertained and recorded. It 

 thus becomes possible to apply the experience gained in 

 other countries for the mitigation of the evils concerning 

 which there is already an abundant literature.* 



The following work is an amplification of a part of the 

 provisional lists of insects indigenous to New Zealand pub- 

 lished by Professor Hutton in 1873 (Trans. N. Z. Inst., VI., 

 p. 158). 



Although our knowledge of the subject is still very 

 incomplete, it may be interesting to note the progress which 

 has been made in the determination of species since the 

 above date. The former lists recorded only 742 species 

 in the eight orders of Coleoptera, Diptera, Orthoptera, 

 Hymenoptera, Neuroptera, Heteroptera, Homoptera, and 

 Lepidoptera. The first of these orders has, through the 

 assiduous labours of Captain Broun, been more thoroughly 

 investigated than the others, and the number of species of 



* See especially the " Guide to the Study of Insects injurious and beneficial to Crops," 

 by Dr. A. S. Packard : Holt and Co., New York, 1876. 



