26 METHODS OF INSECT LIFE. 



be, he will most likely, if it is any kind of attack com- 

 monly injurious to a serious extent, see a figure, 

 history, and account of the best known means of 

 prevention or remedy. 



But in our present study we are aiming at some- 

 thing more. We wish to gain enough information to 

 be able to tell which of the large divisions (orders, 

 that is) of insects whatever insect we may be observing 

 belongs to, because thus at once we shall know many 

 of the chief points of its history. We shall know what 

 changes it will pass through, which is a very useful 

 piece of information ; and if once we have the chief 

 points of distinction of the orders firmly fixed, we have 

 a true foundation, on which we may build up any 

 further knowledge. This is not by any means a 

 difiicult matter. 



Insects are divided into Orders, which are named 

 according to the nature or yiimiber of their ivings. This 

 difference in the wings occurs so regularly, along with 

 difference in the nature of their changes before they 

 advanced to the perfect or imago state, that thus their 

 general life-history before they got their wings may 

 be fairly known. A common two-winged Fly had, 

 generally speaking, a legless grub, and so on. 



These orders are usually so divided as to be 

 thirteen in number, and the scientific names of 

 these all end in the word pera, wings, from the Greek 

 word jj?c?-o», a wing. The previous part of the name 

 of each order describes the number or the form or the 

 nature of the wings. These orders are placed in two 

 divisions (as given below) according to whether the 

 insects of which they are composed feed for the most 

 part by means of jaws working horizontally or 

 laterally, that is, from side to side like pincers held 

 flat; or by means of a trunk or sucker, or piercing 

 apparatus. 



