124 HALF HOURS WITH IXSECTS. [Pacicaud. 



experience: he says "that auts have no unpleasant flavor; 

 they are very agreeably acid, and the taste of the trunk and 

 abdomen is different." He refers to the fact that "in some 

 parts of Sweden ants are distilled along with rye to give a 

 flavor to tlie inferior kinds of brandy." Certain galls are 

 esteemed in Constantinople for their aromatic and acid taste, 

 and Reaumur saj-s that the galls of the ground ivy have 

 been eaten in France, but he thinks it doubtful if they ever 

 rank with good fruits (Kirby). 



Reaumur has suggested that the numbers of injurious 

 caterpillars might be judiciously lessened by our using them 

 as food. Kirby and Spence in their admirable " Introduc- 

 tion to Entomology" give a list of the lepidopterous larvae 

 eaten by man. 



"Amongst the delicacies of a Boshies-man's table, Sparr- 

 man reckons tliose caterpillars from which butterflies pro- 

 ceed. The Chinese, who waste nothing, after they have 

 unwound the silk from the cocoons of the silkworm, send 

 the chrysalis to table : they also eat the larva of a hawk- 

 moth (Sphinx) some of which tribe, Dr. Darwin tells as, 

 are, in his opinion, very delicious; and lastl}-, the natives 

 of New Holland eat the caterpillars of a species of moth of a 

 singular new genus, to which my friend, Alexander MacLeay, 

 Esq., has assigned characters, and from the circumstance of 

 its larva coming out only in the night to feed, has called it 

 Nj'cterobius. A species of butterfly also (Eublaxi Jiamata 

 MacLeay), as we learn from Mr. Bennett, congregates 

 on the insulated granitic rocks in a particular district 

 which he visited in the months of November, December 

 and January, in such countless myriads (with what object 

 is unknown), that the native blacks, who call them Bugong, 

 assemble from far and near to collect them, and, after re- 

 moving the wings and down by stirring them on the ground 

 previously heated by a large fire, and winnowing them, 

 eat the bodies, or store them up for use by pounding and 



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