310 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



are esteemed in the Levant for their aromatic and acid 

 flavour, especially when prepared with sugar, and form 

 a considerable article of commerce from Scio to Con- 

 stantinople, where they are regularly exposed in the 

 market^. The galls of ground-ivy have also been eaten 

 in France ; but Reaumur, who tasted them, is doubtful 

 whether they will ever rank with good fruits^. 



To the Diptera order, as a source of food, man can 

 scarcely be said to be under any obligation ; the larva of 

 Tyropliaga Casei, which is so commonly found in cheese, 

 being the only one ever eaten — a dainty as some think 

 it, of whom you. will perhaps say with Scopoli, ^^ quibtis 

 has delicias non invideo'^" 



The order Aptera^ now that the Crustacea are ex- 

 cluded, does not much more abound in esculent insects 

 than the Diptera. The only species which have tempted 

 the appetite of man in this order are the cheese-mite 

 {Acarus Siro) — lice, which are eaten by the Hottentots 

 and natives of the western coa^t of Africa, who from 

 their love of this game, which they not only collect them- 

 selves from their well stored capital pasture, but employ 

 their wives in the chase, have been sometimes called 

 Phthirophagi'*. Insects of the class Arachnida, which 

 you will think still more repulsive than the last tribe, 

 form an article in Sparrman's list of the Boshies-man's 

 dainties'; and Labillardiere tells us that the inhabitants 

 of New Caledonia seek for and eat with avidity large 

 quantities of a spider nearly an inch long (which he calls 



=* Smith's Introd. to Bot. 346. Oliviei's Travels, i. 139. 



^ Reaum. iii. 416. 



■^ Scop. Carniol. 337. See above, p. 229. note \ 



•" Lat. Hist. Nat. viii. 93. * Sparrman, i. 201. 



