TERMITES (WHITE ANTS). 105 



termites are systematically collected for the purposes of food immediately prior to their 

 emergence from their nests. Mixed with flour, they are made into various descriptions 

 of pastry, which is sold at a low rate to the poorer classes. It would appear that 

 a too abundant use of this description of food occasions a form of colic and dysentery 

 that is speedily fatal. In West Africa, Smeathman deposes, the natives content 

 themselves with securing those of the swarming millions that have fallen upon the 

 surface of neighbouring water. These they skim off with a calabash, carry to 

 their habitation in kettles-full and parch them in iron pots over a gentle fire, 

 stirring them continually after the manner of roasting coffee. Thus prepared, and 

 without any additional materials, they regard them as the most delicious food, 

 putting handsful into their mouths at a time, much as a European youth might 

 devour comfits. Smeathman's personal attestation as to the edible properties of the 

 West African Termites is highly favourable. He speaks to having frequently 

 partaken of them prepared in the manner above described, and to having found them 

 delicate, nourishing, and wholesome ; something sweeter than, but not so fat and 

 cloying as the grub of the Palm-tree beetle, Curculio palmarum. Other gentlemen of 

 Smeathman's acquaintance acquiesced in their being most delicious eating, one com- 

 paring them to sugared marrow, and another to sugared cream and a paste of sweet 

 almonds. 



It is a remarkable fact that, so far as the author has been able to ascertain, 

 Termites are not turned to account as an article of diet by the natives of 

 Australia. On the other hand, it has been observed by him in the Kimberley district 

 of Western Australia that the aborigines are in the habit of devouring large 

 quantities of the earthy substance of the White Ant mounds or termitaria. Frequently, 

 in the course of walking expeditions, the author has seen the natives step aside 

 and break off and eat a handful of this substance, usually from a hillock which 

 the termites had abandoned or from which they had died out, and which was con- 

 sequently in a more or less disintegrated state. This earth-eating propensity was not 

 analogous to that recorded by Humboldt of the Otomac tribe on the Orinoco, for the 

 purpose of alleviating the pangs of hunger in the absence of better food. In this case 

 the partakers were native retainers of Australian settlers, who had an abundance of 

 provisions at command. As White Ant hillocks or termitaries contain a large 

 amount of proteaceous matter in the form both of secretions by their constructors 

 and of adventitiously growing microscopic fungi, it would appear probable that it is 



the presence of these materials that makes the component earth palatable to the 

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