9 1909 
FEB 
PREFACE TO VOLUME I, 
HE first number of these notes made its appearance in 1902 and 
the second in the following year. During the same year a second 
edition of No. 1 was issued, the first having become exhausted. For 
this latter edition a revised set of plates, all photogravures, was pre- 
pared, the plates issued with the first edition having proved most un 
satisfactory. The lengthy period which has elapsed between the 
appearance of the second and third numbers is due to the work having 
been interrupted for a period of two years. 
Whilst these notes are looked upon merely as a preparatory step 
towards the publication of a work on the lines of the well-known 
German Forst Insekten their issue is considered necessary for two 
reasons:—= firstly, they greatly facilitate further research work ; 
for as soon as a considerable number of notes have been collected 
they are put on record, and with this record as a guide further 
research into uncomplete life-histories is greatly aided; secondly, 
they enable those interested in the subject to keep au fait with the 
progress made. 
The object and chief aim of the Notes is to prove a real help to 
the non-specialist workers in the subject, those to whom it is of 
the first importance to possess a reference work to which they can 
turn in cases of sudden need: and insect devastation in a forest 
usually makes its appearance in this sudden form. For this reason 
it becomes necessary to keep the descriptions of the insects as 
free from technicalities as possible. This was attempted in its 
strictest sense in the first part; but it soon became apparent that 
the number of insects of economic importance in the forest and yet 
hitherto undescribed (especially in such families as the Scolytzdz) was 
so large that it became absolutely necessary, in order to distinguish 
closely allied species the one from the other, to give to each a suffi- 
ciently lucid description so as to render their identification possible, 
To avoid all technicalities‘tinder such circumstances has proved im- 
possible. 
The issue of the Notes would not have been practicable but for the 
kindly assistance which has been forthcoming on a liberal scale from 
scientific confréres. 
BI 
