BENEFICIAL INSECTS 213 



Apis dorsata, being the only one recorded ; its larvae and 

 pupae supply food to the natives in the wilder parts. 



Quoting once more from De Smet, who, relating his 

 experiences among various North American Indian tribes, 

 said : " I have seen the Cheyennes, Snakes, and Utes eat 

 vermin off each other by the fistful. Often great chiefs 

 while they talked to me, would pull off their shirts in my 

 presence without ceremony, and while they chatted would 

 amuse themselves with carrying on this branch of the 

 chase in the seams. As fast as they dislodged the game, 

 they crunched it with as much relish as more civilised 

 mouths crack almonds and hazel nuts or the claws of crabs 

 and crawfishes." Dr A. R. Wallace relates of the Indians 

 of the Amazon that an insect which they eat more as a 

 delicacy than as an article of food is a species of Pediculus, 

 which inhabits the head of that variety of mankind, and 

 is probably a distinct species from that of our own country. 

 The method of capturing and devouring this insect is 

 exactly the same as that which everyone has seen adopted 

 by the monkeys at the gardens of the Zoological Society. 

 A couple of Indian belles will often devote a spare half- 

 hour to entomological researches in each other's glossy 

 tresses, every capture being immediately transferred, with 

 much gusto, to the mouth of the operator. 



Biblical students will need no reminder concerning the 

 words that have been written on the subject of manna in 

 the Old Testament. The passage has been the subject of 

 considerable controversy. By some, manna was thought to 

 be a lichen ; by others, a vegetable secretion, and as such it 

 was described by an ancient Persian writer under the name 

 of Guezengebin or Tamarisk honey. This writer, however, 

 noticed that an insect was always closely associated with 

 the secretion. An Englishman, Hardwick, while travelling 

 in Persia, discovered the insect, which he called Chermes 

 mannifer ; and, a little later, Ehrenberg found the insects 

 on tamarisk, growing near Mount Sinai, and at the same 



