PREFACE 



AFTER more than twenty years of studying and 

 - rearing moths, of much hunting for information 

 which was not always to be found, of answering 

 the many questions of many children, parents, and 

 teachers, we have decided to put the results of a part 

 of our experience into a form which may help begin- 

 ners to avoid our mistakes, to escape the ill results of 

 ignorance, and to get more satisfaction with less fail- 

 ure than we had. Therefore we have tried to put into 

 this book all the facts needed for successful work in 

 rearing moths, as much structural detail as beginners 

 need to know, an account of the appliances we have 

 found most useful, and a list of the books which we 

 have used most. 



To this information we have added life-histories of 

 forty-three species which may be found throughout a 

 wide range of our country, and of each species we have 

 given a picture of the larva and the moth, male and 

 female being shown when they differ much. These 

 life-histories are not taken from the accounts of other 

 persons, but are exact statements of our own experi- 

 ences and experiments. They are not given as general 

 statements, because we have learned that the experi- 

 ence with one brood of caterpillars may be quite dif- 



