﻿144 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPOKT 



I give here a paper on the subject, read by me before the last meet- 

 ing of the American Association for the Advancement of Science : 



In the few words I have to communicate under this head, it is not my purpose to 

 inflict a long dissertation on edible insects. The subject has been sufficiently treated 

 of by various authors, and especially by Kirby and Spence in their admirable Intro- 

 duction to Entomology ; while, within the year, Mr. W. K. Gerard has brought to- 

 gether most of the facts in a paper entitled "Entoraophagy," read before the Pough- 

 keepsie Society of Natural History. It is my desire, rather, to demonstrate the avail- 

 ability of locusts as food for man, and their value, as such, whenever, as not un- 

 frequently happens, they deprive him of all other sources of nourishment. 



"With the exception of locusts, most other insects that have been used as food for 

 man, are obtained in small quantities, and their use is more a matter of curiosity than 

 of interest. They have been employed either by exceptional individuals with per- 

 verted tastes, or else as dainty tit-bits to tickle some abnormal and epicurean palate. 

 Not so with locusts, which have, from time immemorial, formed a staple article of diet 

 with many peoples, and are used to-day in large quantities in many parts of the globe. 



Any one at all familiar with the treasures on exhibition at the British Museum, 

 must have noticed among its Nineveh sculptures, one in which are represented men 

 carrying different kinds of meat to some festival, and among them some who carry 

 long sticks to which are tied locusts — thus indicating that in those early days, repre- 

 sented by the sculpture, locusts were sufficiently esteemed to make part of a public 

 feast. They are counted among the " clean meats" in Leviticus (xi, 22), and are re- 

 ferred to in other parts of the Bible, as food for man. In most parts of Europe, Asia, 

 and Africa, subject to locust ravages, these insects have been, and are yet, extensively 

 used as food. Herodotus mentions a tribe of -i^Ethiopians " which fed on locusts which 

 came in swarms from the southern and unknown districts," and Livingstone has made 

 us familiar with the fact that the locust-feeding custom prevails among many African 

 tribes. Indeed, some tribes have been called Acridophagi, from the almost exclusive 

 preference they give to this diet. We have it from Pliny that locusts were in high 

 esteem among the Parthians, and the records of their use in ancient times, as food, in 

 southern Europe and Asia, are abundant. This use continues in those parts of the 

 world to the present day. 



In Morocco, as I am informed by one (Mr. Trovey Blackmore, of London) who 

 has spent some time in that country, they do more or less damage every year, and are 

 used extensively for food whenever they abound so as to diminish the ordinary food- 

 supply ; while they are habitually roasted for eating and brought into Tangier and 

 other towns by the country people and sold in the market places and on the streets. 

 The Jews, who form a large proportion of the population, collect the females only for 

 this purpose — having an idea that the male is unclean, but that under the body of the 

 female there are some Hebrew characters which make them lawful food. In reality 

 there are, under the thorax, certain dark markings — the species used, and which is so 

 injurious to crops, being the Acridium pe7-igrinum. Eadoszkowski, President of the 

 Russian Entomological Society, tells me that they are also, to this day, extensively 

 used as food in southern Kussia ; while many of our North American Indian tribes, and 

 notably the Snake and Digger Indians of California, are known to feed upon them. No 

 further evidence need be cited to prove the present extensive use of these insects as 

 articles of food. Let us then briefly consider the nature of this locust food, and the 

 different methods of preparing it. 



