PEEFACE. 



As this is not a work on comparative anatomy, but treats of 

 ' Insects at Home,' a greater stress is laid on the habits of the 

 insects than on their anatomy. Still, inasmuch as a general 

 knowledge of the various parts of an insect and of the terms 

 applied to them is absolutely necessary for all who wish to 

 study the subject, however superficially, I have given, together 

 with the different groups of insects, those nonions of their 

 structure which serve to distinguish them from their fellows. 



Moreover, there will be found prefixed to the description cf 

 the chief groups chart-drawings of their anatomy, so as to 

 enable the reader to recognise the various portions of an insect 

 when he examines it. I am led to do this by the remem- 

 brance of the-difiiculties undergone by myself during my earlier 

 years of entomology. In those days the only works which 

 gave illustrations as well as names were so few, and so costly, 

 that they were positively out of my reach as much as if they 

 had never existed. I have therefore endeavoiu-ed in this work 

 to supply that want which I felt so severely, and have so 

 arranged the work that no reader need be puzzled as to the 

 difference between mandible, maxilla, labium, and mentum, 

 as I was in former days. For example, the chart-drawing on 

 page 9 describes fully the structure of a Beetle, and is in fact 

 a key to that of all insects ; that on page 296 gives all those 



