THE CICADA AS AN ARTICLE OF FOOD. 103 
Orient, which has been an article of diet from the earliest times, and 
is so employed at the present day, in various places in northern 
Africa and eastern Asia. A similar locust is also now highly esteemed 
as a food article in the island of Madagascar. All of these locusts 
belong, however, to the class of insects known as grasshoppers, and 
on this continent the Rocky Mountain grasshopper or locust has also, 
as is well known, been long used as an article of food by certain 
Indian tribes. 
That the Cicada was eaten by the red men of America, both before 
and after the coming of the colonists, is indicated in a memorandum, 
dated 1715, left by the Rev. Andreas Sandel, of Philadelphia, who, 
referring to the use of locusts as food in eastern Asia, states also 
that the Cicada is so used by the Indians. Dr. Asa Fitch corroborates 
this statement, giving as his authority Mr. W. S. Robertson, who 
informs him “that the Indians make the different species of Cicada 
an article of diet, every year gathering quantities of them and pre- 
paring them for the table by roasting in a hot oven, stirring them 
until they are well browned.”’ 
No practical test was made with the Cicada as an article of human 
food until the experiments instituted by Professor Riley and carried 
out by Doctor Howard in the early summer of 1885. The following 
is an account of Doctor Howard’s experiments: 
With the aid of the Doctor’s (Riley’s) cook he had prepared a plain stew, a thick 
milk stew, and a broil. The Cicadie were collected just as they emerged from pupe, 
and were thrown into cold water, in which they remained overnight. They were 
cooked the next morning, and served at breakfast time. They imparted a distinct 
and not unpleasant flavor to the stew, but were not at all palatable themselves, as 
they were reduced to nothing but bits of flabby skin. The broil lacked substance. 
The most palatable method of cooking is to fry in batter, when they remind one of 
shrimps. They will never prove a delicacy.4 
Mr. T. A. Keleher, who sampled some of the dishes above described, 
has informed the writer that he found the cicadas fried in batter to 
be most palatable, and that he much preferred them to oysters or 
shrimps. 
The great liking manifested by various animals for the pupx before 
and after they have emerged and for the transforming adults has 
already been referred to. Doctor Hildreth, writing in 1830, says: 
While here they served for food for all of the carnivorous and insect-eating animals. 
Hogs eat them in preference to any other food; squirrels, birds, domestic fowls, ete., 
fatten on them. So much were they attracted by the Cicade that very few birds 
were seen around our gardens during their continuance, and our cherries, etc., 
remained unmolested. 
@ Proc. Ent. Soc. Washington, Vol. I, p. 29. 
6 Journal of Science, 1830, Vol. XVIII, p. 47. 
