﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 147 



soup which was really delicious, and was so pronounced by dozens of prominent St. 

 liOuisans who tried it. Shaw, in his Travels in Barhary., (Oxford, England, 1738), in 

 which two pages are devoted to a description of the ravages of locusts, mentions that 

 they are sprinkled with salt and fried, when they taste like crawfish ; and Mr. Bonnet 

 declared this locust soupremuided him of nothing so much as crawfish bisque, which 

 is so highly esteemed by connoisseurs. He also declared that he would gladly have it 

 on his bill of fare every day if he could get the insects. His method of preparation 

 was to boil on a brisk fire, having previously seasoned them with salt, pepper and 

 grated nutmeg, the whole being occasionally stirred. "When cooked they are pounded 

 in a mortar with bread fried brown, or a puree of rice. They are then replaced in the 

 saucepan and thickened to a broth by placing on a warm part of the stove, but not 

 allowed to boil. For use, the broth is passed through a strainer and a few croutons are 

 added. I have had a small box of fried ones with me for the past two months, and 

 they have been tasted by numerous persons, including the members of the London En- 

 tomological Society and of the Socieie. Entomologique de France. Without exception 

 they have been pronounced far better than was expected, and those fried in their own 

 oil with a little salt are yet good and fresh ; others fried in butter have become slightly 

 rancid — a fault of the butter. Mr. C. Home, F. Z. S., writing to Science Gossip about 

 swarms of locusts which visited parts of India in 1863, says: "In the evening I had asked 

 two gentlemen to dinner and gave them a curry and croquet of locusts. They passed 

 for Cabul shrimps, which in flavor they very much resembled, but the cook having 

 inadvertently left a hind leg in a croquet, they were found out, to the infinite disgust 

 of one of the party and the amusement of the other." 



This testimony as to the past and present use of locusts as human food might be 

 multiplied almost indefinitely, and I hope I have said enough to prove that the nature 

 of that food is by no means disagreeable. In short, not to waste the time of the asso- 

 ciation in further details, I can safely assert, from my own personal experience, that 

 our Kocky Mountain locust is more palatable when cooked than some animals that we 

 use upon our table. I mention the species more particularly, because the flavor will 

 doubtless differ according to the species or even according to the nature of the vegeta- 

 tion the insects were nourished on. I have made no chemical analysis of this locust 

 food, but that it is highly nourishing may be gathered from the fact that all animals 

 fed upon the insects thrive when these are abundant ; and the further fact that our 

 locust-eating Indians, and all other locust-eating people, grow fat upon them. 



Locusts will hardly come into general use for food except where they are annu- 

 ally abundant, and our western farmers who occasionally suffer from them will not 

 easily be brought to a due appreciation of them for this purpose. Prejudiced against 

 them, fighting to overcome them, killing them in large quantities, until the stench 

 from their decomposing bodies becomes at times most offensive — they find little that 

 is attractive in the pests. For these reasons, as long as other food is attainable, the 

 locust will be apt to be rejected by most persons. Yet the fact remains that they do 

 make very good food. When freshly caught in large quantities, the mangled mass 

 presents a not very appetizing appearance, and emits a rather strong and not over pleas- 

 ant odor; but rinsed and scalded, they turn a brownish red, look much more inviting, 

 and give no disagreeable smell. 



The experiments here recorded have given rise to many sensational newspaper 

 paragraphs, and I consider the matter of sufficient importance to record the actual 

 facts, which are here given for the first time. 



Like or dislike of many kinds of food are very much matters of individual taste 

 or national custom. Every nation has some special and favorite dish which the people 

 of other nations will scarcely touch, while the very animal that is highly esteemed ia 



