PREFACE. 



THE number and variety of the insect pests which live on the 

 plants of New Zealand, whether native or introduced, and the 

 damage which they frequently do, form the excuse for the 

 appearance of this work. The descriptions of these insects in 

 the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, or in works 

 published in Europe and America, are not easily accessible to 

 the general reader, and are also much scattered and fragmentary. 

 It was thought therefore that the time had arrived when the 

 information which might be useful to gardeners and tree- 

 growers, as well as to students, might be summarized and 

 brought together in a compendious form, and the present volume 

 is an attempt towards this. 



In order to render this work complete a second volume is 

 necessary, which should include the large number of other 

 destructive insects preying upon various plants. For example, 

 the " pine - blight " (Kermaphis), the " American blight" 

 (Eriosoma), the "black leech" (Tenthredo), the cabbage cater- 

 pillar, the turnip " fly," the various aphides on roses, geraniums. 

 &c., the grass-grub (Odontria), the codlin-moth, the borers, 

 weevils, wireworms, and a number of others are in different 

 places damaging trees and plants, and it would be useful to 

 collect in one volume information regarding them. The author 

 has had in contemplation the preparation of such a volume, and 

 it is hoped that it may be at some future time published. 



Meanwhile the present is offered as, at least as far as it 

 goes, a full description of one of the most general as well as the 

 most noxious families of plant-parasites. The plates have been 

 especially prepared with a double object : first, that gardeners 

 and tree-growers might be able easily to recognize the kind of 



