310 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



are esteemed in the Levant for their aromatic and acid 

 flavour, especially when prepared with sugar, and form 

 a considerable article of commerce from Scio to Con- 

 stantinople, where they are regularly exposed in the 

 market 3 . The galls of ground-ivy have also been eaten 

 in France ; but Reaumur, who tasted them, is doubtful 

 whether they will ever rank with good fruits 5 . 



To the Diptera order, as a source of food, man can 

 scarcely be said to be under any obligation ; the larva of 

 Tyrophaga Casei, which is so commonly found in cheese, 

 being the only one ever eaten a dainty as some think 

 it, of whom you will perhaps say with Scopoli, " quibus 

 has delicias non invideo c " 



The order Aptera, now that the Crustacea are ex- 

 cluded, does not much more abound in esculent insects 

 than the Diptera. The only species which have tempted 

 the appetite of man in this order are the cheese-mite 

 (Acarus Siro) lice, which are eaten by the Hottentots 

 and natives of the western coast of Africa, who from 

 their love of this game, which they not only collect them- 

 selves from their well stored capital pasture, but employ 

 their wives in the chase, have been sometimes called 

 Phthirophagi d . Insects of the class Arachnida, which 

 you will think still more repulsive than the last tribe, 

 form an article in Sparrman's list of the x Boshies-man's 

 dainties c ; and Labillardiere tells us that the inhabitants 

 of New Caledonia seek for and eat with avidity large 

 quantities of a spider nearly an inch long (which he calls 



s Smith's Introd. to Eot. 346. Olivier's Travels^ i. 139. 



b Reaum. iii. 416. 



c Scop. Carniol. 337- See above, p. 229. note b . 



d Lat. Hist. Nat. viii. 93. c Sparrman, i. 201. 



