171 



LETTER X. 



BENEFITS DERIVED 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 be- 

 longing to the entomological world, 1 mean the Crustacea, consisting prin- 

 cipally of the genus Caricer 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 lobster, crab, or 

 shrimp is set before them. The fact is, that habit has reconciled 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 

 jjrejudices, 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 favourite part of ours.* 



Many larvae^ tliat belong to the order Colcoptera are eaten in different 

 parts of the world. The grub of the palm-weevil (6'o7'(/j//ia * p«/wan«w), 



1 Walpole in Clarke's Travels, ii. 187. Even INIr. Boyle speaks with abhorrence 

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



2 Sec a long and interesting paper by the Rev. F. W. Hope upon edible insects 

 in the Trans. Ent. Soc. (vol. iii. part 2.). 



3 15ai-on Humboldt asks {Person. Narr. VI. i. 8. note) — "What are those worms 

 (Loid in Arabic) wliioh Captain Lyon, the fellow-traveller of my brave and unfor- 

 tunate friend Mr. Kitchie. 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 Agiiautle, 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 Littcratura de Mexico, 1794, iii. No. 2G. p. 20 1. It appears from this 

 note of the illustrious traveller, that insects are used as food in their egg as well as 

 their other states. 



4 Ilerbst and Schijnherr call this distinct genus lilujncophorits ; but as this is too 

 near the name of the tribe (^Rhi/ncnphora), we have adopted Thunberg's name 

 altering the termination, to distinguish it from Cordyle, a genus of Lizards. 



