LOCUSTS AS FOOD FOR MAN. 53 i 



LOCUSTS AS FOOD FOR MAN. 



Bt DAVID ALEXANDEK LYLE, U. S. A. 



THIS subject may appear to some, if not all of you, a rather pecul- 

 iar one. The eating of insect-flesh is entirely repugnant to our 

 feelings, and at once arouses all our natural and inherited antipathies. 

 Even those who accept literally the Mosaic history of the creation as 

 set forth in the book of Genesis, are loath to take advantage of the 

 permissory bill of fare granted by Divine authority in the book of 

 Leviticus. In the eleventh chapter of Leviticus, verses 1, 21, and 22, 

 will be found these words : 



1. " And the Lord spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto 

 them : . . . 



21. " Yet these may ye eat, of every flying creeping thing that 

 goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal 

 upon the earth ; 



22. " Even these of them ye may eat ; the locust after his kind, 

 and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and 

 the grasshopper after his kind." 



Other references may be found in the Bible to the use of locusts as 

 food. In one place in particular, in Mark i, 6, we read that " John 

 was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his 

 loins ; and he did eat locusts and wild honey." 



From these passages we learn that in olden times locusts were con- 

 sidered to be an article of food. And wild honey, which is an insect 

 product, is highly prized by both aboriginal and civilized communities 

 even to this day. In no one particular are we so much the creatures 

 of custom and habit as in eating. That which is a delicacy to one 

 is disgusting to another. The food relished by one nation or tribe 

 may be spurned by another as loathsome. The inhabitants of the in- 

 terior and mountains are often nauseated by the toothsome dishes of 

 the denizens of the coast. A knowledge of the habits of certain ani- 

 mals (I use the term " animals " in its biological sense as distinguished 

 from plants) often gives rise to an unconquerable abhorrence of the 

 use of their flesh as food. To show how empirical are man's stand- 

 ards of edibles, it will only be necessary to cite a few instances. 

 Beef, for example, is an almost universal article of food. But, should 

 I place before my readers a roast of beef and tell them that this meat 

 was taken from an animal that was accidentally drowned yesterday, 

 my guests would very likely be indignant as well as disgusted, while 

 at the same sitting they would eat and praise the flavor of a fish 

 caught upon the same date and then left to drown in the air, if I may 

 use the term, while it flops about and writhes with all the intensity of 

 agony of which its low nervous organization is capable. We dote 



