208 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



birds, devour them, are no despicable honne bouche, might be added to 

 our entremets. This would be one means of keeping down the numbers 

 of these occasionally destructive animals. The Mexican Indians, accord- 

 ing to M. Vasselet and Madame Salle and her son, who have transmitted 

 such numbers of fine insects from Mexico to M. Chevrolat of Paris, pre- 

 pare a liquor from a beetle (^Cicindela curvatd) by macerating it in water 

 or spirit, which they apparently use as a stimulating beverage.^ 



la the next order of insects, the Orthoptera, the Gryllus, or locust 

 tribe, as they are the greatest destroyers of food, so as some recompense 

 they furnish a considerable supply of it to numerous nations. They are 

 recorded to have done this from the most remote antiquity, some Ethiopian 

 tribes having been named from this circumstance Acridophagi (locust- 

 eaters).^ Pliny also relates that they were in high esteem as meat 

 amongst the Parthians.^ Hasselquist, in reply to some inquiries which he 

 made on this subject with respect to the Arabs, was informed that at 

 Mecca, when there was a scarcity of corn, as a substitute for flour they 

 would grind locusts in their hand-mills, or pound them in stone mortars ; 

 that they mixed this flour with water into a dough, and made their cakes 

 of it, which they baked like other bread. He adds, that it is not unusual 

 for them to eat locusts when there is no famine ; but then they boil them 

 first a good while in water, and afterwards stew them with butter into a 

 kind of fricassee of no bad flavor.^ Leo Africanus, as quoted by Bochart, 

 gives a similar account.^ Sparrman informs us that the Hottentots are 

 highly rejoiced at the arrival of the locusts in their country, although they 

 destroy all its verdure, eating them in such quantities as to get visibly 

 fatter than before, and making of their eggs a brown or cofFee-colored 

 soup. He also relates a curious notion which they have with respect to 

 the origin of the locusts — that they proceed from the good will of a great 

 master-conjuror a long way to the north, who, having removed the stone 

 from the mouth of a certain deep pit, lets loose these animals to be food 

 for them.^ This is not unlike the account given by the author of the 

 Apocalypse, of the origin of the symbolical locusts, which are said to 

 ascend upon an angel's opening the pit of the abyss.' Clenard, in his 

 letters quoted by Bochart, says that they bring waggon-loads of locusts 

 to Fez, as a usual article of food.^ Major Moor informs me, that when 

 the cloud of locusts noticed in a former letter visited the Mahratta 

 country, the common people salted and ate them. This was anciently 

 the custom with many of the African nations, some of whom also smoked 

 them.^ They appear even to have been an article of food offered for sale 

 in the markets of Greece^'' ; and on a subject so well known, to quote no 

 other writers, Jackson observes that, when he was in Barbary in 1799, 

 dishes of locusts were generally served up at the principal tables and 

 esteemed a great delicacy. They are preferred by the Moors to pigeons ; 

 and a person may eat a plateful of two or three hundred without feeling 

 any ill effects. They usually boil them in water half an hour, (having 

 thrown away the head, wings, and legs,) then sprinkle them with salt and 



* Silbermann, Rivue Eatom. i. 238. 



* Diod. Sic. 1. iii. c. 29. Strabonis, Geno. \. xvi. Ace. 



' Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 29. * Travels, 232. * Hieroz. ii. 1. 14. c. 7. 



8 Sparrman, i. 367. ' Rev. ix. 2, 3. 



8 Hieroz. ii. 1. 4. c. 7. 492. » Pliny, Hist. Nat. 1. vi. c. 30. '» Id. Ibid. 



