CHAPTER LXXV 

 INSECTS AND HUMAN WEALTH 



445. Insects as food. In certain parts of Africa and Asia, as 

 well as in South America, Mexico, and Central America, the 

 natives are said to use various species of locust and caterpillar 



FIG. 213. The clothes moth (Tinea pellionella) 



It is the larva of this animal that eats woolen and fur material. The eggs are laid on the 



material and hatch out when the temperature is sufficiently warm. It is for this reason 



that we rarely find the animals in the winter, and it is for this reason that furs and woolen 



rugs etc. are placed in cold storage during the summer months 



as food. Ants and termites, cicadas, the grubs of beetles, and 

 the eggs of water beetles are also consumed. The Chinese 

 sometimes eat the pupa of the silk moth, after the silk has been 

 removed from the cocoon. In so-called civilized countries the 



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