The Naturalist always begins at the beginning and traces family, sub-family, genus and species.  He deals in Latin and Greek terms of resounding and disheartening combinations.  At his hands anatomy and markings become lost in a scientific jargon of patagia, jugum, discocellulars, phagocytes, and so on to the end of the volume.  For one who would be a Naturalist, a rare specimen indeed, there are many volumes on the market.  The list of pioneer lepidopterists begins authoritatively with Linnaeus and since his time you can make your selection from the works of Druce, Grote, Strecker, Boisduval, Robinson, Smith, Butler, Fernald, Beutenmuller, Hicks, Rothschild, Hampson, Stretch, Lyman, or any of a dozen others.  Possessing such an imposing array of names there should be no necessity to add to them.  These men have impaled moths and dissected, magnified and located brain, heart and nerves.  After finishing the interior they have given to the most minute exterior organ from two to three inches of Latin name.  From them we learn that it requires a coxa, trochanter, femur, tibia, tarsus, ungues, pulvillus, and anterior, medial and posterior spurs to provide a leg for a moth.  I dislike to weaken my argument that more work along these lines is not required, by recording that after all this, no one seems to have located the ears definitely.  Some believe hearing lies in the antennae.  Hicks has made an especial study of a fluid filled cavity closed by a membrane that he thinks he has demonstrated to be the seat of hearing.  Leydig, Gerstaecker, and others believe this same organ to be olfactory.  Perhaps, after all, there is room for only one more doctor of science who will permanently settle this and a few other vexing questions for us.

But what of the millons of Nature Lovers, who each year snatch only a brief time afield, for rest and recreation?  What of the masses of men and women whose daily application to the work of life makes vacation study a burden, or whose business has so broken the habit of study that concentration is distasteful if not impossible?  These people number in the ratio of a million to one Naturalist.  They would be delighted to learn the simplest name possible for the creatures they or their friends find afield, and the markings, habits, and characteristics by which they can be identified.  They do not care in the least for species and minute detail concerning anatomy, couched in resounding Latin and Greek terms they cannot possibly remember.

I never have seen or heard of any person who on being shown any one of ten of our most beautiful moths, did not consider and promptly pronounce it the most exquisite creation he ever had seen, and evince a lively interest in its history.  But when he found it necessary to purchase a text-book, devoid of all human interest or literary possibility, and wade through pages of scientific dissertation, all the time having the feeling that perhaps through his lack of experience his identification was not aright, he usually preferred to remain in ignorance.  It is in the belief that all Nature Lovers, afield for entertainment or instruction, will be thankful for a simplification of any method now existing for becoming acquainted with moths, that this book is written and illustrated.