xvu 



be excluded from the same order. The Locust represented in Plate 50. Fig. 2. is eaten 

 h\ many tribes, and, I may say, nations of people, in Asia and Africa. These animals 

 are frequently driven from their native soils, by strong winds, into foreign countries, where, 

 for several days together, by their inconceivable numbers, they obscure the light of the 

 sun, and make the inhabitants tremble for their vegetables. It is at those times the 

 Asiatics and Africans gather them, and eat them with much delight, dressing them, either 

 by stewing, or frying them with oil ; they also pickle and sell them publicly in some of the 

 markets of the Levant, and many other parts. 



The caterpillar belonging to Fig. 1. of Plate 38. which I have mentioned in my 

 description of that insect to be eaten in the West Lidies, and considered as a dainty, is 

 sought for by those persons who are admirers of that food, in the most diligent manner ; 

 and I have been informed, by gentlemen of undoubted veracity, that so exceedingly delighted 

 are they with it, as to employ negroes on no other business but to go into the woods on- 

 purpose to procure these caterpillars, by digging them out of the bodies of certain trees, 

 the only places where they are to be found. Perhaps the cossi of the Romans, a kind of 

 food we are told they were much delighted with, might be a species not much unlike this ; 

 however that be, these are considered as amply recompensing, by their delicious flavour, 

 the pains taken to procure them. 



Honey is a substance known to every one, and the agreeable liquor made from it, which 

 in some countries serves the inhabitants for their constant drink, is not to be procured but 

 by the industry of the agile bee. 



In fine, the limits of this preface will not permit me to dwell minutely, and point out 

 the benefits mankind does, and may receive, by the institution of this order of animals. I 

 shall again refer my reader to the book I mentioned before, "Stillingfleet's Tracts ;" where 

 he will find these and many other advantages I have not mentioned, treated of in a most 

 ingenious manner ; being the observations of some of the greatest men of the university of 

 Upsal in Sweden ; for this reason, therefore, I shall consider this subject no farther, but 

 proceed to describe the plan of the work ; wherein, if the reader expects to find the insects 

 classed in systematic order, as well as represented, he will be greatly disappointed. It is 

 not my present design to enter into the scientific part of the study, by arranging the insects 

 according to any system now established ; nor will the reader find that I have given a 

 single name to any one here figured. This, indeed, must be the consequence of not follow- 

 ing the system of any author, unless I had formed one of my own ; for it is impossible I 

 should give names to them, particularly trivial ones, without doing one or the other. The 

 calling an insect by the general appellation of moth, butterfly, &c. I cannot consider as 

 derogatory to what I have said. Hence I flatter myself I shall avoid all occasion for 

 reflection by the disciples of different authors, in not following the method established by 

 others ; and, therefore, my desire of giving no room for exceptions of this kind, has induced 

 me to follow no one whatever. By this, also, I have left it in the power of every person to 



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