PREFACE. XIU 



are lurking troublesome drones and disgusting para- 

 sites. 



ISTow, altliough. we have a great number of learned 

 men in our country wlio have distinguished them- 

 selves in the different branches of Natural History, 

 still few works have been published on the subject. 

 Much credit is due to Professor Godman for his excel- 

 lent work on American Mammalia, which has been 

 augmented by the late publications of Audubon ; also 

 to Wilson, Lucien Bonaparte, and Audubon, who, in 

 their splendid works, have minutely described the 

 North American Birds ; as well as to Professor Hol- 

 brook for his work on North American Eeptiles. 

 Still, in spite of all this, we have no general work on 

 North American Insects, except a few numbers of 

 the American Entomology, by Thomas Say; Major 

 Leconte's Iconography of some genera of Butterflies ; 

 and Dr. Harris's elaborate report on the injurious In- 

 sects of Massachusetts. 



It is time that our people in general, and particu- 

 larly our youth, should be made acquainted with a 

 class of animals which every where surround us, day 

 and night, and which furnish us amusement, food, col- 

 oring substances, and medicines, in order that they 

 may be able to distinguish the useful from the injuri- 

 ous ones, the harmless from the noxious, and to dis- 

 cover those which may farnish new articles for man- 

 ufactures, commerce, ^nd domestic industry. 



For these reasons I have yielded to the solicitations 

 of numerous friends, and am about to lay before the 

 North American public the fruits of my Entomolog- 

 ical investigations, pursued for many years during my 

 extensive travels in Europe, Asia, and on this Conti- 



