xii First Report on Economic Zoology. 



Group F. — Animals which concern man as being destructive to his 

 worked up products of art and industry, such as {A) his 

 various works, buildings, larger constructions and habitations ; 

 {E) furniture, books, drapery and clothing ; (6') his food and 

 his stores. 



Examples. — White ants ; wood-eating larvse ; clothes 

 moths, weevils, acari and marine borers. 



Group G. — Animals which are known as " beneficials " on account of 

 their being destructive to or checking the increase of the 

 injurious animals classed under Groups I), E and F. 



Examples. — Certain carnivorous and insectivorous birds, 

 reptiles and amphibia ; parasitic and predaceous insects, acari, 

 myriapoda, etc. 



The above is a complete classification of animals in their economic 

 relation to man, and proceeds from the simpler relations of primitive man 

 and the animals around him to the more complex relations of civilised 

 man with his endless arts and industries and circumscribed conditions. 



It is, however, convenient in the treatment of the subject, whether in 

 a Museum Collection or in a Handbook, to deal with the last group 

 (Group G), the beneficial animals, in immediate connection with the 

 injurious animals by the destruction of which they render service. The 

 diseases of injurious animals caused by parasitic plants such as fungi and 

 bacteria are naturally connected also with this subject of " beneficials." 

 But in the artificial scheme which we have decided for practical reasons 

 to accept, they are omitted, and the student is referred to the botanist and 

 pathologist for the treatment of these vegetable organisms. 



A similar treatment of Group E, namely, those animals which injure 

 other animals in the conservation of which man is interested, would be 

 convenient in some ways. But it is not followed here for two reasons, 

 firstly, because it is convenient rather to associate this group with the 

 animals causing disease or death to man, the animals of the two groups 

 being in many cases identical or closely related, and secondly, because tlie 

 zoologist has to take cognizance of a further large and important series of 

 injurious animals, namely, those which destroy or injure the cultivated or 

 wild ^;?«n^s in the life of Avhich man is interested. 



It is obvious that the subject-matter of Economic Botany could be 

 set forth in a series of groups exactly parallel to those which we have 

 employed for reviewing the subject-matter of Economic Zoology ; we 

 should merely have to substitute the word "plant " for " animal" in the 

 groups given above, and to use the appropriate words in the place of 

 " captured " and " slaughtered." 



A review of the contents of each of the main Groups A to G is given 

 below. It is to be noted that the animals of Group G will, as explained 

 above, be placed in our Museum series (and in any further treatment of 

 the subject based on this prodromus) alongside of the particular forms of 

 injurious animals to which they are hostile. 



It is also found convenient in a subject which has such definite local 

 interest and importance as has that of Economic Zoology to sub-divide 

 every group into a series of sections con-esponding to large geographical 

 areas. For the purposes of the Natm*al History Museum, and with the 



