210 INSECTS AND MAN 



white colour, and about the size of one's little finger. They 

 are known to the natives of the West Indies and Brazil as 

 " Grougrou," and are held in great esteem as food. Armed 

 with a strong knife, the West Indian digs a hole in some 

 cabbage palm that has been attacked by the weevil, till 

 he comes to the pith, and then he is almost certain to find 

 a plentiful supply of grubs, which he devours after a 

 preliminary roasting or frying. Should the supply of 

 these grubs become scanty, the larvae of another beetle, 

 Stenodontes damicornis, efficiently take their place. 



The common cockchafer, Melolontha vulgaris, is not 

 exactly a prepossessing-looking insect, from a gastronomic 

 point of view ; its aroma is not pleasant, and its habits are 

 not of the best, but this does not prevent a closely related 

 species, Melolontha hypoleuca, from being much relished 

 in Java, whilst the peasants of Lombardy are partial to 

 the abdomens of another bettle, Rhizotrogus assimilis. 

 In Moldavia and Valachia, the beetle, Rhizotrogus pini, 

 forms a common article of food. 



Among certain peoples a considerable degree of plump- 

 ness is essential in every woman who would find favour 

 with the opposite sex, and here again insects come to the 

 rescue. The ladies of the Nile Valley wax fat upon the 

 scarab, Scarabceus sacer, a beetle whose outlines are 

 familiar to the most unentomological, for they have been 

 figured on Egyptian tombs and monuments times without 

 number. In Tunis, a species of churchyard beetle, Blaps 

 sulcata, is used for the same purpose, despite the fact that 

 it is possessed of a disgusting odour ; whilst in Turkey, 

 the larva of a beetle allied to the meal worm, Tenebrio 

 molitor, is the recognised flesh producer. An aquatic 

 beetle, Eunectes sticticus, in its larval and adult forms 

 is eaten in Burmah. 



Beetle fare is by no means confined to the Old World ; 

 a favoured dish among Peruvians is largely composed of 

 an aquatic beetle, Elmis chilensis and the Mexicans, not 



