Dec, 1910.] Skinner : The Use of Insects as Food. 265 



the sun for food in cases of necessity.* De Smet also says: "I 

 have seen the Cheyennes, Snakes, Utes, etc., eat vermin off each 

 other by the fistfull. Often great chiefs, while they talked to me, 

 would pull off their shirts in my presence without ceremony, and 

 while they chatted would amuse themselves with carrying on this 

 branch of the chase in the seams. As fast as they dislodged the 

 game, they crunched it with as much relish as more civilized mouths 

 crack almonds and hazel-nuts or the claws of crabs and crawfishes. "f 



De Smetij: states of these people : " Add to this, by way of an 

 exquisite dessert, an immense dish of crusts, composed of pulverized 

 ants, grasshoppers and locusts, that had been dried in the sun, and 

 you may then be able to form some idea of Assiniboine luxury." 



In the desolate forests and barren grounds, the natives, mostly 

 of Athabascan stock, make use of insect food in a different manner. 

 Russell§ says of the Dog Ribs: " A gadfly (thought to be Hypoderma 

 lineafa by Dr. Riley, but in the absence of specimens the species is 

 uncertain) deposits its eggs in the back of the caribou, in some 

 individuals to the number of several hundred, which renders the 

 skin utterly useless for leather. The grubs were well developed in 

 the latter part of April when I left the barren ground. The Indians 

 did not remove them from pieces of meat destined for the kettle." 

 Hearne|| remarks of the same people: "The Indians, however, never 

 could persuade me to eat the warbles, of which some of them are 

 remarkably fond, especially the children. They are always eaten 

 raw and alive out of the skin and are said by those who like them 

 to be as fine as gooseberries." 



The Shoshone proper, and other tribes of the same stock dwelling 

 on the plains were not averse to entomological numbers on their bill 

 of fare. " Among other things the former are said to have relished 

 serpents, lizards, grasshoppers, mice, crickets and pismires which 



* Lowie, The Assiniboine, Anthropological Papers of the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, Vol. IV, Part I, p. 12. 



t De Smet, Life, Letters and Travels, etc., Vol. Ill, p. 1002. 



t Father De Smet's Life and Travels among the North American Indians 

 (Chittenden and Richardson), p. 1032. 



§ Frank Russell, Explorations in the Far North, being the report of an 

 expedition under the auspices of the University of Iowa, during the years, 

 1892, 1893 and 1894, p. 228. 



II Hearne, Journal, p. 316. 



