SECRETARY'S REPORT. 125 



again appear " nature's special police " designed to remove 

 from the surface of the earth all decaying substances which not 

 only offend the senses, but also pollute the atmosphere, and 

 impregnate it with the seeds of disease and death ; others 

 contribute in a greater or less degree to the comforts and 

 luxuries of mankind. It is of the first or insectivorous species 

 that I propose to treat in the following pages. 



The intelligent farmer has learned tliat the birds are his 

 friends and lay him under greater obligations by destroying 

 injurious insects than the theft of a few cherries and kernels 

 of corn, or the drilling a few holes in the bark of his trees, will 

 cancel: he will protect if he does not cultivate the toad, the 

 frog, and the harmless snakes of our nothern climate. But he 

 will scarcely make distinctions in the ranks of the insects. 



The predacious ground-beetle that is discovered in the 

 furrow, in his search after grubs and caterpillars, is as likely to 

 be trodden under the ploughman's boot, as is his destined food, 

 the cutworm. Within the past year or two many complaints 

 have been heard, of the little red " bugs" that swarmed on the 

 rye, wheat and oats, and were supposed to be feeding lipon 

 those grains, but which on examination proved to be " lady- 

 birds," or small scarlet beetles of the insectivorous class, sub- 

 sisting almost entirely on the Aphis, or plant-louse, which was 

 the real enemy of tiie crop. These are but solitary instances 

 of the danger of mistaking an extremely useful and valuable 

 assistant for a noxious species, and treating him accordingly. 



It is with a view to furnish information by which we can 

 distingui^^h insects of the former class, and exempt them from 

 the general war of extermination, that the present essay has 

 been undertaken. And inasmuch as we shall be obliged to 

 draw somewhat from the vocabulary o^ technical science, it may 

 not be amiss to give in this place an explanation of some of the 

 terms, most of which will be met with in every treatise on this 

 sul)ject. Although these may be familiar to many of our read- 

 ers, experience proves the necessity of such a plan to others. 



The most obvious points of an insect, when closely exam- 

 ined, are, 1st, the head, to which are attached the antennce, or 

 horns, the ej/es, and the mouth, or eating apparatus ; 2d, the 

 thorax, to which are attached the loings and the feet; 3d, the 

 abdomen, which is composed of several segments, or joints, and 



