ARTHROPODA 103 



places filled with goods, fumigation with hydrocyanic acid or sulphur 

 dioxide may be used. 



Red ants sometimes become so extremely numerous as to be exceed- 

 ingly annoying. In tropical countries these tiny insects are often 

 so numerous that it is necessary to set each leg of the dining room and 

 kitchen' tables in a cup or small pan of oil or water to keep the food 

 from being covered with them. In going from Hong Kong to Canton, 

 China, by the night boat, a few years ago, the writer without thinking, 

 put a package of sandwiches on the shelf in a small closet in his state- 

 room. Early the next morning, six or seven hours later, when he went 

 to get his sandwiches they were an almost solid mass of tiny red ants 

 and had to be thrown overboard. In houses the red ants may be fought 

 in the same way as the roaches and fleas, but, owing to their small size 

 and large numbers, their extermination is often a matter of considerable 

 difficulty. 



While a large majority of the insects are injurious to man, as has 

 been said, there are numerous forms that are of direct or indirect 

 benefit to him. For example : there are numerous insects that are used 

 as food by the natives of the tropics. The best known of these are the 

 grasshoppers or locusts. "Locusts and wild honey" are mentioned in 

 the Bible as food. In the markets, of Manila, for example, may be 

 seen on the stalls piles of grasshoppers with the appendages removed, 

 ready for cooking. They are cooked in various ways or may even be 

 eaten raw; though the raw locusts are said to be of very disagreeable 

 taste. The cooked ones are said to be really delicious. Nearly every 

 sort of insect is used as food by various savage tribes in various parts 

 of the world, especially the fat, juicy grubs or larvae of beetles, and lepi- 

 doptera. The enormous queen termites, noted above, are also eaten. 



Honey-bees. A more universally esteemed insect diet, especially 

 among civilized peoples, is honey, which has been an article of food 

 from earliest times, the Bible speaking^of various lands that "flowed 

 with milk and honey." It was probably the "wild" honey that was 

 first used, just as it is still used occasionally, when a "bee-tree" is 

 discovered; but the keeping of bees in hives so that all the honey made 

 by them might be easily gathered is an ancient custom, probably origi- 

 nating in Southern Asia, or in the East Mediterranean region. The 

 United States is now the greatest producer of honey; in 1900 there were 

 produced 61,000,000 pounds of honey, besides 750,000 pounds of bees- 



