DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 311 



Aranea edulis), and which they roast over the fire*. 

 Even individuals amongst the more polished nations of 

 Europe are recorded as having a similar taste ; so that, 

 if you could rise above vulgar prejudices, you would in 

 all probability find them a most delicious morsel. If 

 you require precedents, Reaumur tells us of a young 

 lady who when she walked in her grounds never saw a 

 spider that she did not take and crack upon the spot b . 

 Another female, the celebrated Anna Maria Schurman, 

 used to eat them like nuts, which she affirmed they much 

 resembled in taste, excusing her propensity by saying 

 that she was born under the sign Scorpio c . If you wish 

 for the authority of the learned, Lalande the celebrated 

 French astronomer was, as Latreille witnessed d , equally 

 fond of these delicacies. And lastly, if not content with 

 taking them seriatim you should feel desirous of eating 

 them by handfulls, you may shelter yourself under the 

 authority of the German immortalized by Rosel e , who 

 used to spread them upon his bread like butter, observing 

 that he found them very useful, " um sich auszulaxiren" 

 These edible Aptera and Arachnida are all sufficiently 

 disgusting: but we feel our nausea quite turned into 

 horror when we read in Humboldt, that he has seen the 

 Indian children drag out of the earth centipedes eighteen 

 inches long and more than half an inch broad, and de- 

 vour them f . 



After all I have said, you may perhaps still feel a pre- 

 judice against insects as food; but I think, when you re- 



3 Voyage d la recherche de la Perouse, ii, 240. 



b Reaum. ii. 342. c Shaw, Nat. Misc. (i Hist. Nat. vii. 227. 



c Rosel, iv. 257. f Personal Travels, ii. 205. 



