BENEFICIAL INSECTS 205 



means good luck ; a sluggish silent one the reverse. These 

 caged insects, after being carried about all day, and their 

 respective merits being dilated upon by their owners, are 

 liberated in the evening. 



" In the north of Africa the natives in the villages make 

 a regular trade in capturing and caging crickets, which 

 they sell in the towns, where they are kept and fed like 

 cage-birds for their song. In China, another species is 

 often sold in cages ; but they are used like game-cocks for 

 their fighting qualities, and sums of money are lost and 

 won on their prowess. In some parts of England it is 

 still firmly believed that if you kill or injure a cricket that 

 has come into the house, its relations will come into the 

 house at night and eat holes in your clothes for revenge." 



It is hardly possible to imagine anything less appetising, 

 in appearance, than the larva or grub of a warble fly, yet 

 one species is in great demand as an article of diet with 

 the Dog Rib Indians. These people of Athabascan stock 

 are in the habit of eating caribou, an animal that is much 

 affected by warbles, often several hundreds being found 

 on one individual. This does not appear to trouble the 

 Indians, who never remove the warbles from the meat 

 before cooking ; in fact, the grubs are considered a delicacy. 

 Hearn says, of the same tribe : " The Indians, however, 

 never could persuade me to eat the warble, of which some 

 of them are remarkably fond, especially the children. 

 They are always eaten raw and alive out of the skin, 

 and are said, by those who like them, to be as fine as 

 gooseberries." 



The butterflies and moths, despite the fact that they 

 include an enormous number of species, have not been very 

 largely drawn upon as food. Pliny, writing of the Roman 

 epicures, mentions that the larva of an insect called Cossus 

 was held in great esteem by them. The grub was very 

 carefully tended, and especially fattened for the table on 

 flour and wine; when ready for eating it was said to 



