DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 309 



fully sought after and preserved for the use of the debi- 

 litated Surjee Rao, prime-minister of Scindia chief of the 

 Mahrattas a . 



The Hymenoptera order also furnishes a few articles 

 to add to this head. I do not allude to the nectar which 

 the bees collect for us. But perhaps you do not suspect 

 that bees themselves in some places serve for food, yet 

 Knox tells us that they are eaten in Ceylon 5 : an un- 

 grateful return for their honey and wax which I would 

 on no account recommend. Piso speaks of yellow ants 

 called Cupid inhabiting Brazil, the abdomen of which 

 many used for food, as well as a larger species under 

 the name of Tama-joura c ,- which account is confirmed 

 by Humboldt, who informs us that ants are eaten by the 

 Marivatanos and Margueritares, mixed with resin for 

 sauce. Ants, I speak from experience, have no unplea- 

 sant flavour ; they are very agreeably acid, and the taste 

 of the trunk and abdomen is different ; so that I am not 

 so much surprised as Mr. Consett seems to have been 

 at the avidity with which the young Swede mentioned by 

 him sat down to the siege of an ants' nest d . This author 

 states, that in some parts of Sweden ants are distilled 

 along with rye, to give a flavour to the inferior kinds of 

 brandy 6 . Under this head may not improperly be men- 

 tioned several galls the product of different species of gall- 

 flies (Ci/nips], particularly those found on some kind of 

 Sage, viz. Salvia pomifera, S. triloba, and S. officinalis, 

 which are very juicy like apples, and crowned with rudi- 

 ments of leaves resembling the calyx of that fruit. They 



a Letters written in a Makralta Camp in 1809. 



b Knox's Ceylon, 25. c Piso, Ind. 1. v. c. 13. 291. 



d Travels in Sweden, 118. e Ibid. 



