2 OUR INSECT FRIENDS AND FOES 



It is only during the last few years that the 

 biological significance of insect life as a factor in 

 the life of man and domestic animals has been 

 fully realized and established ; and, as a natural 

 consequence, the study of insect life, now known 

 to be intimately connected with the health and 

 .prosperity of. the Empire, has assumed a greater 

 :stnd far/r^iejiing importance. Roughly speaking, 

 trie teeming Hordes of insects inhabiting the 

 eart}! } may be/vdtVided into two great groups: 

 one Composed of those insects which are harm- 

 less to man, or which as collectors of honey, or 

 carriers of pollen from one flower to another, 

 are his true friends ; the second, of those insects 

 which as ravagers of crops, or as transmitting 

 agents of disease, are his deadly foes. It is 

 therefore all important that we should be able 

 to distinguish readily those insects which are 

 our friends from those which scientific research 

 has proved to be our foes. 



In commencing the study of insect life, the 

 subject should be approached not through the 

 museum specimen and dry-as-dust technical 

 text-book, but by actual personal observation of 

 the living insect in its natural environment. 

 Let your dead museum specimens and technical 

 text-books act as your reference library and 

 dictionaries, through which you may identify 

 each new specimen and correctly name it. But 

 do not rest satisfied with mere jackdaw-like 

 collecting and pedantic classification. Go out 

 into the fields and lanes, through orchard and 

 garden, forest and marshland, hillside and valley, 

 and closely observe every stage in the life- 



