a. 
em 
the Relative Edibility of Insects. 11 
would not go near it! When I made the beetle run 
towards him, he leapt on to me with every sign of 
dislike, and almost fear. 
(Note——I was once holding a closely allied species in 
my fingers about 2 feet away from my face, when 
the beetle ejected fluid which struck my eyebrow 
and caused a painful burning sensation lasting half 
an hour, though I at once bathed my face. Proc. 
Ent. Soc. Lond., 1918, pp. c, ci.) 
Obs. 23. Sp. 16.—Acridiid, Phymateus viridipes 
Stil: a large grasshopper, about three inches long, 
of a hard, unpleasant, green colour, with spiny thorax 
edged with red. A sluggish species, found freely 
exposed, often quite in the open. When put on 
ground in front of M. it at once erected its wings 
vertically, showing their purplish red and black colour, 
but made no attempt to escape. M. looked very hard 
at it, took hold of one wing, let go, and again looked 
very hard at it, but made no attempt to eat it. 
Obs. 24. Sp. 17.—To show that M. was not replete 
I then gave him a large, green, procryptic Tryxalid 
grasshopper, which he ate with gusto. 
Obs. 25. Sp. 18.—Acridiid, Cyrtacanthacris ruficornis 
Burm.: lastly I gave M. this very abundant, large, 
procryptic grasshopper (which the Uganda natives 
know well and eall “ E’jansi”’’), which M. ate, as 
always, with great gusto, first biting the head off. 
This species was commonly made use of as “ Staple 
-food ”’ afterwards. 
(Note——After very definite refusal of Nos. 15 and 
16, M. ate with eagerness two insects of approximately 
the same bulk. }. 
Series D. Dec. 29.—At 5 p.m. [probably later: see Ser. 
C, p. 9] I took M. out hunting for himself. He ate 
a number of quite small insects, including young green 
Mantids, and one or two large Mantid egg-capsules. 
He found on the stems of the bushes two more of the 
Acridian 18, which he ate greedily. While eating one of 
them, seated on a bush, he suddenly saw a large mantis, 
Idolum diabolicum Saus. (Obs. 26. Sp. 19). This is an 
extremely procryptic leaf-green species, with leaf-like 
expansions on the hind femora: the sides of the thorax 
are prolonged laterally to form thin flattened expan- 
sions. This species frequented a certain bush whose 
