174 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



wings, and legs), then sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and fry them, 

 adding a little vinegar.' From this string of authorities you will readily 

 see how idle was the controversy concerning the locusts which formed 

 part of the sustenance of John the Baptist, agreeing with Hasselquist '^j 

 that they could be nothing but the animal locust, so common a food in the 

 East ; and how apt even learned men are to perplex a plain question, from 

 ignorance of the customs of other countries. 



In the hcmlpteroits order of insects, none are more widely dispersed, or 

 (if you will forgive me a pun) have made more noise in the world, than the 

 Cicada tribe. From the time of Homer, who compares the garrulity of age 

 to the chirping of these insects^, they have been celebrated by the poets ; 

 and Anacreon, as you well know, has inscribed a very beautiful little ode 

 to them. We learn from Aristotle, that these insects were eaten by the 

 polished Greeks, and accounted very delicious. The worm {larva), he 

 says, lives in the earth where it takes its growth : that it then becomes a 

 Tettigometra ('pvpa), when he observes they are most delicious, just before 

 they burst from their covering. From this state they change to the T'ettix 

 or Cicada, when the males at first have the best flavour ; but after impreg- 

 nation the females are preferred on account of their white eggs.* Athe- 

 nasus also and Aristophanes mention their being eaten ; and ^Elian is 

 extremely angry with tlie men of his age, that an animal sacred to the 

 Muses should be strung, sold, and greedily devoured.^ Pliny tells us that 

 the nations of the East, even the Parthians, whose wealth was abundant, 

 use them as food.^ The imago of the Cicada septendecim, is still eaten by 

 the Indians in America, who pluck off the wings and boil them '' ; and 

 the aborigines of New South Wales, as we learn from Mr. Bennett, 

 formerly used various species of the Cicadidce as food, stripping off the 

 wings and eating them raw. They are aware that the sounds made by 

 these insects which they call galnng-galang, are peculiar to the males, and 

 depend upon their drums, observing to Mr. Bennett, in their peculiar 

 English, " Old woman galang-galang no got, no make a noise." ^ 



This ancient Greek taste for Cicadce seems now much gone out of 

 fashion ; but perhaps if it were revived in those countries where the insects 

 are to be found, for they inhabit only warm climates ^, it would be 

 ascertained that so polished a people did not relish them without reason. 



No insects are more numerous in this island than the caterpillars of 

 Lepidopfera : if these could be used in aid of the stock of food in times of 

 scarcity, it might subserve the double purpose of ridding us of a nuisance, 

 and relieving the public pressure. Reaumur suggests this mode of diminish- 

 ing the numbers of destructive caterpillars, speaking of that of Plusia 

 Gaimna, a moth which did' such infinite mischief in France in the year 



1 Jackson's Travels in 3Iarocco, 53. The Rev. E. Sheppard caused some of our 

 large English grasshoppers (Acrida viridissima) to be cooked in the Avay here 

 recommended, only substituting butter for viuegar, and found them excellent. 



2 Travels, '230. 3 Hom. //. y. 150 — 154. 



4 Arist. Hist. An. 1. v. c. 30. 



5 Vide Bochart, Hieroz. ii. 1. 4. c. 7. 491. 



6 Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 26. ' P. CoUinson in Phil. Trans. 1763, n. x. 



8 Bennett's Wanderings in New South Wales, i. 237., quoted in Entom. 3Iag, 

 hi. 211. 



8 One species, however, has been found in Hampshire in the New Forest. Sfc9 

 Samouelle's EntomoloyisCs Useful Compendium, t. 5. f. 2. 



