314 Miscellaneous. 



about a month the bundles are removed from the water, dried, and 

 then beaten over a large cloth, to separate the myriads of eggs with 

 which the insects had covered them. These eggs are then cleaned 

 and sifted, put into sacks like flour, and sold to the people for making 

 a sort of cake or biscuit, called ' Hautle,' which forms a tolerably good 

 food, but has a fishy taste, and is slightly acid. The bundles of 

 Curex are replaced in the lake, and afford a fresh supply of eggs, 

 which process may be repeated for an indefinite number of times. 



Moreover, says M. Craveri, the Mexicans collect quantities of these 

 insects from the surface of the water by means of hooped nets, and 

 these are dried and sold as food for birds. In Mexico these dried 

 insects are sold in the streets and markets, the dealers crying " Mos- 

 chitos, Moschitos," just as in Europe they cry "Food for your 

 singing birds." 



It appears that these insects have been used from an early period ; 

 for Thomas Gage, who sailed to Mexico in 1625, says, in speaking 

 of articles sold in the markets, that they had cakes made of a sort 

 of scum collected from the lakes of Mexico, and that this was also 

 sold in other towns. 



Brantz Mayer, in his work on Mexico (' Mexico as it was and as 

 it is,' 1844), says, "On the lake of Tezcuco, I saw men occupied in 

 collecting the eggs of flies from the surface of plants, and cloths 

 arranged in long rows as j)laces of resort for the insects. These 

 eggs, called ' Agayacath,' formed a favourite food of the Indians long 

 before the conquest, and, when made into cakes, resemble the roe of 

 fish, having a similar taste and appearance. After the use of frogs 

 in France, and birds'-nests in China, I think these eggs may be con- 

 sidered a delicacy ; and I found that they are not rejected from the 

 tables of the fashionable inhabitants of the capital." 



The more recent observations of Messrs. Saussure, Salle, Virlet 

 d'Aoust*, &c., have confirmed the facts already stated, at least in the 

 most essential particulars. 



The insects which principally produce this animal farina of Mexico 

 are two species of the genus Corixa of Geoffroy, Hemipterous insects 

 of the family of Water-bugs. One of these species has been described 

 by M. Gucrin-Meneville as new, and has been named by him Corixa 

 femorata. The other, identified in 1831 by Thomas Say as one of 

 those sold in the markets of Mexico, bears the name of Corixa mer- 

 cenariu. 



The eggs of these two species are attached in innumerable quanti- 

 ties to the triangular leaves of the Carex forming the bundles which 

 are deposited in the water. They are of an oval form, with a protu- 

 berance at one end and a pedicel at the other extremity, by means 

 of which they are fixed to a small round disk, which the mother 

 cements to the leaf. 



Among these eggs, which are grouped closely together, and some- 

 times fixed one over another, there are found others, which are larger, 

 of a long and cylindrical form, and which are fixed to the same leaves. 



"^ Ann. Nat. Hist. 3 scr. vol. i. p. 7!'. 



