March, 1912.] AldRICII : LaRV.E UsED AS FoOD BY INDIANS. 29 



with an insipidity beyond expectation on account of the absence of 

 salt in the stew. The fat had cooked out so as to float on the fluid, 

 and had a strong odor Hke Hnseed oil, which was in fact the only 

 quahty beyond toughness that I noticed. After I had performed the 

 experiniciitiim cnicis, my hostess, if I may use the term, appeared to 

 be reheved of the fear of ridicule, and brought out a cloth in which 

 she had about a quart of the dried worms, uncooked. These I bought 

 of her and brought home with me. As the stage departed about this 

 time, I secured no farther information from her about the mode of 

 preparing this food material. The description given me by Mr. 

 Mattley and also by Mr. Rector of the general store near by, was 

 to this effect: The caterpillars feed on the leaves of the yellow pine 

 (Pinus ponderosa) but not on the one-leafed pifion (Piniis mono- 

 phylla) which is much more abundant about Mono Lake. The 

 Indians collect the caterpillars by making a smudge under the tree, for 

 which purpose they make a trench rather close about the base of the 

 tree; this is presumably to guard against the spread of the fire. As 

 the thick smoke rises and envelopes the caterpillars, it causes them 

 to let go and drop to the ground, where they are collected by the 

 Indians, killed and dried. The preserved material is called Papaia. 



A few days later, while I was at Berkeley, Cal., I had a conversa- 

 tion on this subject with Mr. Roy Headley, of the Forest Service in 

 the San Francisco office. He informed me that while inspecting a 

 national forest some distance southeast of the Mono Lake basin, he 

 found every pine over a considerable hillside surrounded by a trench 

 in which there had been a fire ; he examined the work with interest, 

 for fear that the forest was being subjected to an undesirable fire 

 risk. It appeared from his statement and what I learned at Mono 

 Lake that the collection of this caterpillar for food is an industry of 

 considerable importance in the territory along the Nevada-California 

 line. 



Observing that the stewed specimens, of which I had fortunately 

 saved a couple, were much fresher in appearance than the dry ones, I 

 tried to freshen up some more material by prolonged soaking in warm 

 water. To a certain degree it improved the condition of the specimens, 

 but was far from making them life-like. I then tried injecting the 

 softened specimens with gelatine, which helped a little more. The 

 skins had too many holes in them, after manipulating them to make 



