Fore Talk 



13 



shell pinched on to the end of its proboscis and 

 probably it had a sore nose for days thereafter. 



My readers have a great advantage over the 

 boys of yesterday — they have an advantage in the 

 fact that they now have books written for them to 

 tell them these things, also nature studies in all the 

 schools, besides parents and teachers who are in- 



terested in such studies, whereas the boys of yester- 

 day had no such books and the only nature stories 

 printed were too absurd for a place outside of 

 Mother Goose. 



In spite of the dearth of books on our insect 

 neighbors, however, when the writer was five years 

 old he had learned by personal investigation the 

 whole history of at least one beetle, he knew the 

 male from the female beetle, he knew the eggs and 



