WEEVILS. 225 
as injurious as Cantharides taken internally on a slow scale,—re- 
ferring to the Spanish-fly, Cantharis vesicatorta, or blister-beetle, 
so well-known in commerce and imported from Spain for medical 
purposes. On the other hand, the Rev. W. Hope, F.R.S., refers 
to the Levitical law (Lev. xi. 21, 22), where permission is given 
for the people to eat “beetles, locusts, and grasshoppers.” Men- 
tion is made of an Indian king treating his guests with the larva 
of an insect instead of fruit, which, it is stated, would probably 
be a species of Calandra, which is widely spread over the Asiatic 
continent. 
Calandra palmerum, an insect two inches long, is said to be 
roasted by the natives of the West Indies, and is esteemed, when 
properly cooked, rich and delicate eating. Linnzeus confirms the 
delicacy of the fare. The same Rev. gentleman regards the 
Baptist’s food in the wilderness to be the locust migatoria, and 
not the pods of a species of cassia. He also gives a list of eighteen 
species of beetles which are eaten in hot countries, and observes, 
“Considering that all the insects alluded to live on clean vegetable 
diet, for the most part, consequently afford more wholesome food 
than some of the animals usually served on our tables,” he could 
see no reason why they should not be eaten. 
Dr. Moffatt, the African Missionary, declares locusts to be good 
food, and almost as good as shrimps. 
In these days of food adulteration one gets uncommonly 
suspicious. 
In finely dressed flour there is very little chance, if any, of con- 
tamination from beetle matter, that is supposing beetle matter to 
be contaminatious ; but in wheat-meal, or undressed flour there 
is greater liability, and if the wheat is infested, and no imported 
corn is free, notwithstanding the efforts of millers to remove all 
impurities, you will be sure to get more or less of weevil matter 
in it. By a consensus of opinion, oat meal is regarded as the most 
nutritious of all food for English people, and, singular to say, 
there are no weevils or any devouring pests to be found in oats, 
that is, in the matured grain. Query, Is this the reason for their 
extra wholesomeness? In the presence of medical men one feels 
treading on dangerous ground, and I only venture to name the 
matter with a view to elicit information. I have not seen the 
subject mooted, and perhaps it is a little irrelevant to the subject 
of my paper. 
There is a wide field, almost unexplored, opened to micros- 
copists in the examination of articles of food ; up to the present 
it has been in the hands of professional gentlemen, and of these 
only a very few are workers. The way to work is to get a pure 
sample and compare suspected samples with it, z.e., in this case, 
get a quantity of wheat free from weevils, have it ground and 
