Vi INTRODUCTION 



the cat, with their burdens of fleas, have taken on a new 

 aspect and appeal to us from an entirely new viewpoint. 

 The kitchen drain, the open cesspool and closet, the 

 barnyard manure pile, the horse stable, and the hog 

 pen present entirely new problems to the occupants of 

 the farm home through the insects that originate in 

 them. One neglected manure pile can furnish enough 

 house-flies to overrun several households all the summer 

 through. An open kitchen drain can afford breeding- 

 places for enough mosquitoes to change pleasant summer 

 evenings into hours of torment and displeasure. 



The present work is not intended as a treatise on the 

 relation of insects to disease. The author's colleagues 

 are now at work on a thorough and extended discussion 

 of that phase of the subject. In the following pages, 

 the writer devotes the principal part of the discussion 

 to the habits, injuries, and control of insects simply as 

 pests of the household and of man, contenting himself 

 with a brief summary of the relation of insects to 

 disease. It is hardly to be expected that so brief a 

 work will include all of the insect pests that may invade 

 the household ; but an attempt has been made to discuss, 

 at least, the most important ones with which our present 

 knowledge makes us more or less familiar. 



The erroneous ideas and unnecessary fears prevalent 

 regarding the poisonous nature of certain insects and 

 their near relatives and the interest evinced in this 

 matter have seemed to warrant the addition of a chapter 

 on this subject. In this discussion, the author has at- 

 tempted to state the simple truth and to clear away, as 

 far as existing knowledge makes it possible, the hazy 

 and almost superstitious notions regarding the venomous 

 qualities of these small animals. 



