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LETTER X. 



BENEFITS DEKIVED FROM INSECTS. 

 DIRECT BENEFITS. 



My last letter was devoted to the indirect advantages which we derive 

 from insects ; in the present I shall enumerate those of a more direct 

 nature for which we are indebted to them, beginning with their use as the 

 food of man, in which respect they are of more importance than you may 

 have conceived. 



One class of animals, which, till very lately, have been regarded as 

 belonging to the entomological world, I mean the Crustacea, consisting 

 ' principally of the genus Cancer of Linne, are universally reckoned 

 amongst our greatest dainties ; and they who would turn with disgust from 

 a locust or the grub of a beetle, feel no symptoms of nausea when a lob- 

 ster, crab, or shrimp is set before them. The fact is, that habit has recon- 

 ciled us to the eating of these last, which, viewed in themselves, with 

 their threatening claws and many feet, are really more disgusting than the 

 former. Had the habit been reversed, we should have viewed the former 

 with appetite and the latter with abhorrence, as do the Arabs, " who are 

 as much astonished at our eating crabs, lobsters, and oysters, as we are at 

 their eating locusts."^ That this would have been the case is clear, at 

 least as far as regards the former position, from the practice in other parts 

 of the world, both in ancient and modern times, to which, begging you to 

 lay aside your English prejudices, I shall now call your attention ; first 

 observing by the way, that the insects used as food, generally speaking, 

 live on vegetable substances, and are consequently much more select and 

 cleanly in their diet than the swine or the duck, which form a favorite part 

 of ours.^ 



Many larvae^ that belong to the order Coleoptera are eaten in different 

 parts of the world. The grub of the palm-weevil (^Cordylia^ palmarum) , 



' Walpole in Clark's Travels, ii. 187. Even Mr. Boyle speaks with abhorrence of eating 

 raw oysters. — Walton's Angler, Life, p. 12. 



* A long and interesting paper by the Rev. F. W. Hope upon edible insects has appeared 

 in the Trans. Ent. Soc. (vol. iii. part 2.), whilst this sheet is going through the press, to 

 ■which we are unable therefore more fully to refer. 



3 Baron Humboldt asks (Person. Narr. VI. i. 8. note) — "What are those worms (Lonl 

 in Arabic) which Captain Lyon, the fellow-traveler of my brave and unfortunate friend 

 Mr. Ritchie, found in the pools of the desert of Fezzan, which served the Arabs for food, 

 and which have the taste of caviare ? Are they not insects' eggs resembling the Agiiauth, 

 which I saw sold in the markets of Mexico, and which are collected on the surface of the 

 lakes of Texcuco ? " For this latter fact he refers to the Gazeta de Litteratura de Mexico, 

 1794, iii. No. 26. p. 201. It appears from this note of the illustrious traveler, that insects 

 are used as food in their egg as well as their other states. 



* Herbst and Schonherr call this distinct genus Rhyncophorus ; but as this is too near the 

 name of the tribe {Ehyncophora), we have adopted Thunberg's name, altering the termina- 

 tion, to distinguish it from Cordyle, a genus of Lizards. 



