This book provides the first monograph of Coccinellidae. Although the
group finds inclusion both in Clausen's (1940) "Entomophagous Insects"
and in Balduf's (1935) "Entomophagous Coleoptera", reference in these
works is limited to three and twenty pages respectively. Moreover, the
last thirty years since these books appeared have een a great deal of
work on the group. The use of insecticides largely destroyed the early
attempts at biological control and interest remained low for as long as
insecticides appeared quite successfuL However, the problems of
insecticides soon became apparent, and in the last decade there have
been tremendous developments in biological control, particularly in
eombin
