DIliECT BENEFITS DERIVED PROM INSECTS. 307 



a fire of stinking materials made at the former^. Thus 

 they catch great quantities, of which they make with 

 flour a variety of pastry, that they can afford to sell 

 cheap to the poorer people. Mr. Smeathman says he 

 has not found the Africans so ingenious in procuring or 

 dressing them. They are content with a very small 

 part of those that fall into the waters at the time of 

 swarming, which they skim off with calabashes, bring- 

 large kettles full of them to their habitations, and parch 

 them in iron pots over a gentle fire, stirring them about 

 as is done in roasting coffee. In that state without sauce 

 or other addition they serve them up as delicious food, 

 and eat them by handfuls as we do comfits. He has eaten 

 them dressed in this way several times, and thought them 

 delicate, nourishing and wholesome, being sweeter than 

 the grub of the weevil of the palms, {Calandra Palma- 

 rum,) and resembling in taste sugared cream or sweet 

 almond paste *•. The female ant, in particular, is sup- 

 posed by the Hindoos to be endowed with highly nu- 

 tritive properties, and, we are told by Mr. Broiighton, 

 was carefully sought after and preserved for the use of 

 the debilitated Surjee Rao, prime minister of Scindia 

 chief of the Mahrattas'^. 



The Ilj/menoptera order also furnishes a ^ew articles 

 to add to this head. I do not allude to the nectar which 

 the bees collect for us. But perhaps you do not suspect 

 that bees themselves in some places serve for food, yet 



'■ Captain Green relates that, iti the ceded districts in India, they place 

 the branches of trees over the nests, and then drive the insects out by 

 means of smoke ; which attempting to fly, their wings are broken ofl' by 

 the mere touch of the branches. 



'' Smeathman, 31. " Letters lorilten in a Maliraila Camp in 1800. 



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