426 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
fish, and shell-fish, with cold tallow is, eaten raw or cooked, being fre- _ 
quently mixed with wild parsnips, some kinds of fucus, the licorice 
root, the stalks of a rumex or wild rhubarb, snake-root, with various 
berries, and formed into various dishes of food. The stomach of the 
reindeer, distended with well masticated willow sprigs, in a half 
digested state, is highly esteemed. This is dried over the fire or in the 
smoke of the huts for winter use, and when mixed with melted suet, oil, 
and snow, is highly relished. It is deemed a powerful antiscorbutic. 
The various berries coilected by the tribes of Oregon Indians are 
sometimes, for variety, mixed with the dried eggs of the salmon; also 
with crickets, dried and pulverized. The siphons of Panopea excelsa, a 
marine shell-fish, are used as food after being smoke-dried. 
By the Diggeis of California and the Plains grasshoppers are caught 
in great numbers. When the insect attains its best condition, the 
Indians select some favorable locality and dig several little pits, in shape 
somewhat like inverted funnels, the aperture being narrower at the 
surface than at the base, the object being to prevent the insect which 
chances to tumble in from hopping out again. The pits being ready, an 
immense circle is formed, the surrounding grass is set on fire, and the 
Indians, men, women, and children, station themselves at proper inter- 
vals around the fiery belt, keeping up a continual ring of flame, until 
the luckless orasshoppers are corraled in the pits or roasted at the 
brink. They are eaten after being mixed with pounded acorns, and 
constitute one of the national dishes. Grasshoppers are sometimes 
gathered into sacks saturated with salt, and placed in a heated trench, 
covered with hot stones, for fifteen minutes, and are then eaten as 
shrimps, or they are ground and put into soup or mush. This tribe also 
feed upon ants, catching them by spreading a dampened skin or 
fresh-peeled bark over their hills, which immediately attracts the inhab- 
itants toits surface. When filled, the cover is carefully removed and the 
adhering insects shaken into a tight sack, where they are confined until 
dead, and are then thoroughly sun-dried and laid away. Bushels are 
thus gathered annually, and are not more offensive than snakes, lizards, 
and crickets, which the tribe also eat. Grasshoppers are pounded up 
with service, hawthorn, or other berries. The mixture is made into 
small cakes, pressed hard, and dried in the sun for future use. 
A large fly deposits its eggsin the frothy edge of the surface of Mono 
Lake, in California, each of which when hatched becomes a larva of 
considerable size, and is called ke-chah-re by the natives. These larve 
when dried and pulverized are mixed with meal made of acorns, to be 
sun-dried or baked as bread, or mixed with water and boiled with hot 
stones for soup. The color of the powdered larvee being similar to that 
of coarsely-ground black pepper, gives a forbidding appearance to the 
compound. 
Among the Indians of Hudson’s Bay it is the practice to prepare 
pemican, which is the common mode of condensing food among northern 
Indians. The lean meat is dried, pounded up, and mixed with melted 
fat, and put into buffalo-skin bags to congeal and become solid. Sugar 
is often added, or dried berries of various kinds. When other fruits or 
vegetables are not attainable the Indians are forced to employ a kind of 
lichen which grows upon rocks, having an egg-like appearance. It is 
boiled with pemican and dissolves into a glutinous substance, and if, 
or some fruit or vegetable, is held to be an “indispensable ingredient in 
the mixture. 
Raw fish eyes, the roes of salmon, and other small scraps are buried 
in the earth until putrid, and then eaten, cooked or raw. These sub- 
