The Principal Orders

In order to study a group of animals which includes so many thousand different kinds it is necessary to divide them into a number of sharply defined divisions or orders. All animal life is naturally grouped into such divisions and subdivisions. Among the insects we at once detect seven large, sharply defined divisions or orders, and ten or more smaller ones. Of these we have first, the two-winged true flies; second, the four-winged butterflies and moths; third, the hard-backed bee

les; fourth, the stinging four-winged wasps and bees; fifth, the variously formed sucking insects or true bugs, as chinch bugs and bed-bugs; sixth, the rapid-flying four-winged snake doctors or dragon-flies and, seventh, the hopping forms, the grasshoppers. Besides these we have the various smaller orders of water-loving insects, fleas, etc. The seven groups mentioned above include the majority of our common forms and in the studies to follow we will include only representatives from these orders.