ENTOMOLOGY IN OUTLINE 



Arranged for Horticultural Commissioners, Fruit-Growers, and Farmers* 



BY JOHN ISAAC. 



Some simple work, which shall present, in plain, every-day language, 

 information about the insect world, has long been desired by our County 

 Horticultural Commissioners and fruit-growers. As a rule, these men 

 are not scientific entomologists, nor do they need be, but, at the same 

 time, it is necessary that they should know something of insects and 

 their modes of living, and be able to distinguish between insect friends 

 and enemies, in order that they may protect the one and destroy the 

 other. 



It is much to be able to tell to what order an insect belongs, more to 

 know to what family in that order it belongs, and this is as far as the 

 average commissioner or orchardist can hope to go; to go farther and 

 trace it to genera and species is the work of the trained entomologist, 

 and is a life work alone for any man. 



It is the desire of the writer to place such knowledge before his 

 readers, in the simplest manner, divested as far as possible of all scien- 

 tific and technical terms. Those who desire more can acquire it from 

 the scientific text-books. We do not offer this as a scientific disserta- 

 tion on entomology, nor as giving, by any means, all that is known of 

 that science, but simply as an introduction to every-day men of the 

 more general facts which they should know in the pursuit of their call- 

 ing for the benefit of their constituents. 



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SYSTEM IN NATURE. 



Success in any pursuit depends upon system, and this is essentially 

 true of the study of any branch of natural history. As we gaze around 

 us upon the material world, we behold a conglomerate mass of life that 

 may astonish, or even oppress, us with its multitudinous forms, but 

 until we can take each individual object and trace it down to its proper 

 place in the order of nature, it has no meaning for us. To accomplish 

 this, the natural sciences, geology, botany, biology, have been estab- 

 lished, and these again have been subdivided, until every object can be 

 assigned to its proper place and its life and peculiarities known and 

 described. There is no field in which subdivision has been called out. 



