i8 
NATURE vSTUDY. 
istic peculiar to it alone, we next took one order by itself 
and found that we could separate the insects in it into 
smaller groups, having a sort of family appearance, and 
these smaller groups we called families. 
If we went still farther with our arranging, or classif}^- 
ing, we should find that each family might be again divid¬ 
ed into still smaller groups, each of which is called a 
genus, and that the genus still again is made up of the 
smallest groups of all, or the species. It is the same with 
plants. The squashes, for example, all belong to one ge¬ 
nus, but there are many .species of squashes, as the Hub¬ 
bard, the Summer, the Crook-necked, and so on. 
We shall take up the plants, by the way, in the Nature 
Study Tessons that are to follow, and try to learn something 
about classifying them, as we have done with the insects. 
The world of nature is so large, there are so many things 
of interest to be seen in our walks and even about our 
homes—insects, flowers, birds, four-footed creatures, and 
countless queer things that crawl on the land or swim in 
the water—that most of us had better learn a little about 
each kind than try to learn everything about any single 
group—which, indeed, it would be impossible to do in a 
lifetime. 
We have already learned something about the chief 
families of the Coleoptera, the Tepidoptera, the Hemiptera, 
the Orthoptera, the Diptera and the Hymenoptera. All 
other insects may be arranged in a single remaining or¬ 
der—the Neuroptera or “ nerve-winged.” 
No doubt those entomologists are right who maintain 
that the insects which have been included in the Neurop¬ 
tera are so unlike that they ought to be separated into at 
least a dozen distinct orders. But differences which are 
significant to the scientist may not be of great importance 
to other people. Most boys and girls can make a better 
use of their time than in trying to determine in which cor- 
