DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 307 



No insects are more numerous in this island than the 

 caterpillars of Lepidoptera : if these could be used in aid 

 of the stock of food in times of scarcity, it might subserve 

 the double purpose of ridding us of a nuisance, and re- 

 lieving the public pressure. Reaumur suggests this mode 

 of diminishing the numbers of destructive caterpillars, 

 speaking of that of Plusia Gamma., a moth which did 

 such infinite mischief in France in the year 1735 a . If 

 however we were to take to eating caterpillars, I should, 

 for my own part, be of the mind of the red-breasts, and 

 eat only the naked ones 5 . But you will see that there 

 is some encouragement from precedent to make a meal 

 of the caterpillars which infest our cabbages and cauli- 

 flowers. Amongst the delicacies of a Boshies-man's 

 table, Sparrman reckons those caterpillars from which 

 butterflies proceed c . The Chinese, who waste nothicg, 

 after they have unwound the silk from the cocoons of 

 the silkworm, send the chrysalis to table : they also eat 

 the larva of a hawk-moth (Sphinx*), some of which tribe, 

 Dr. Darwin tells us, are, in his opinion, very delicious e : 

 and lastly, the natives of New Holland eat the caterpil- 

 lars of a species of moth of a singular new genus, to which 

 my friend Alexander MacLeay, Esq., has assigned cha- 

 racters, and, from the circumstance of its larva coming 

 out only in the night to feed, has called it Nycterobius. 



The next order, the Neuroptera^ will make us some 

 amends for the meagerness of the last, as it contains the 

 white ant tribe ( Termes), which, in return for the mis- 

 chief it does at certain times, affords an abundant supply 



a Reaum. ii. 341. b Ray's Letters^ 135. 



c Sparrman, i. 201. d Sir G. Staunton's Voy. iii. 246. 



e Phytol. 364. 



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