In offering this little volume to the public of youthful readers the author wishes to say that it has no claim to the completeness of a scientific treatise, but is merely the result of a summer's rambling through the woods and meadows of New England. It is, however, accurate as far as it goes. The illustrations have been drawn and engraved, with great care and accuracy, by Mr. Albert C. Russell, of Boston, from specimens in the author's collection, and all the descriptions have been carefully studied from nature. The volume is published with the hope that it will awaken in boys and girls a greater interest in the study of a delightful branch of natural history; and the author will be fully satisfied if other little folks find in reading it as much pleasure as it has already given to a little boy named Tom, for whom it was written, and to whom it is fondly dedicated by his mamma.

From the preface