12 BEETLES. 



and it will be the aim of the following pages to describe the nox- 

 ious, kinds, illustrate them, tell about their life-histories, and give 

 the most approved methods for killing them or for preventing 

 their ravages in other ways. 



The beetles discussed in these piages are all, or nearly all, 

 either directly injurious or beneficial. They are arranged not ac- 

 cording to their food-plants, but according to the classification of 

 beetles, so that those interested in such matters may also find some- 

 thing of interest to them. 



As far as a classification of beetles is concerned, it would of 

 course be impossible to give one that would include all the ii,ooo 

 beetles found in the United States, or even those occurring in Min- 

 nesota alone. Nor is it the office of the entomologist to give one 

 in these pages, his main object'being to describe beetles injurious 

 to fruit-producing plants, and to give the proper remedies against 

 them. For this purpose no attempt will be made to give even a 

 description of all the families that compose the Order of Coleop- 

 tera, and the reader will vuiderstand the reason when he learns 

 that the beetles of North America, exclusive of Mexico, are ar- 

 ranged in about eighty distinct families, representing upwards of 

 seventeen hundred genera. 



Our recognized authorities in this order of insects make the 

 following primary divisions : 



BEETLES. 

 (Order Coleoptera). 



Cole opt era (Typical or True Beetles), in which the mouth- 

 parts are all present, and in which the front of the head is not 

 elongated into a beak or rostrum. 



I. Isomera (Similar joints). The beetles contained in this 



division have, with rare exceptions, the same number of 



tarsi in all their feet. 



A. Adephaga (Carnivorous beetles). These beetles 



possess thread-like feelers with distinct and cylin- 



