VI 
Prefatory Note 
with which some Nature-books try to disseminate knowledge. The few 
technical terms used are all explained in the text in connection with their 
first use, and besides are inserted in the Index with a specific reference, in 
black-faced type, to the explanation. So that the tyro reading casually in 
the book and meeting any of these terms apart from their explanation has 
only to refer to the Index for assistance. Readers more interested in accounts 
of the habits and kinds of insects than in their structure and physiology 
will be inclined to skip the first three chapters, and may do so and still find 
the rest of the book “easy reading” and, it is hoped, not devoid of entertain¬ 
ment and advantage. But the reader is earnestly advised not to spare the 
little attention especially needed for understanding these first chapters, and 
thus to ensure for his later reading some of that quality which is among 
the most valued possessions of the best minds. 
In preparing such a book as this an author is under a host of obligations 
to previous writers and students which must perforce go unacknowledged. 
Some formal recognition, however, for aid and courtesies directly tendered 
by J. H. Comstock of Cornell University, whose entomological text-books 
have been for years the chief sources of knowledge of the insects of this 
country, I am able and glad to make. To my artist, Miss Mary Wellman, 
for her constant interest in a work that must often have been laborious and 
wearying, and for her persistently faithful endeavor toward accuracy, I extend 
sincere thanks. To Mrs. David Starr Jordan, who read all of the manuscript 
as a “general reader” critic, and to President Jordan for numerous sugges¬ 
tions I am particularly indebted. For special courtesies in the matter of 
illustrations (permission to have electrotypes made from original blocks) 
I am obliged to Prof. F. L. Washburn, State Entomologist of Minnesota (for 
nearly one hundred and fifty figures), Prof. M. V. Slingerland of Cornell 
University, Dr. E. P. Felt, State Entomologist of New York, Mr. Wm. 
Beutenmiiller, editor of the Journal of the New York Entomological Society, 
and Dr. Henry Skinner, editor of the Entomological New r s. 
Vernon L. Kellogg. 
Stanford University, California, 
June i, 1904. 
