DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 175 



1735. 1 If, however, we were to take to eating caterpillars, I should for 

 my own part be of the mind of the red-breasts, and eat only the naked ones.* 

 But you will see that there is some encouragement from precedent to make 

 a meal of the caterpillars which infest our cabbages and cauliflowers. 

 Amongst the delicacies of a Boshies-man's table, Sparrman reckons those 

 caterpillars from which butterflies proceed. 3 The Chinese, who waste 

 nothing, after they have unwound the silk from the cocoons of the silk- 

 worm, send the chrysalis to table : they also eat the larva of a hawk-moth 

 (Sphinx*), some of which tribe, Dr. Darwin tells us, are, in his opinion, very 

 delicious 5 : and lastly, the natives of New Holland eat the caterpillars of a 

 species of moth of a singular new genus, to which my friend, Alexander 

 MacLeay, Esq. has assigned characters, and from the circumstance of its 

 larva coming out only in the .night to feed, has called it Nycterobius. A 

 species of butterfly also (Enplcea hamata MacLeay), as we learn from 

 Mr. Bennett, congregates on the insulated granitic rocks in a particular 

 district, which he visited in the months of November, December, and 

 January, in such countless myriads (with what object is unknown), that 

 the native blacks, who call them Bugong, assemble from far and near to 

 collect them, and, after removing the wings and down by stirring them on 

 the ground previously heated by a large fire, and winnowing them, eat the 

 bodies, or store them up for use by pounding and smoking them. The 

 bodies of these butterflies abound in an oil with the taste of nuts ; and 

 when first eaten, produce violent vomitings, and other debilitating effects : 

 but these go off after a few days, and the natives then thrive and fatten 

 exceedingly on this diet, for which they have to contend with a black 

 crow, which is also attracted by the Bugongs in great numbers, and which 

 they despatch with their clubs, and use as food. 6 



The next order, the Neuroptera, contains the white ant tribe (Termes), 

 which, in return for the mischief it does at certain times, affords an 

 abundant supply of food to some of the African nations. The Hottentots 

 eat them boiled and raw, and soon get into good condition upon this food. 7 

 Konig, quoted by Smeathman, says that in some parts of the East Indies 

 the natives make two holes in the nests of the white ants, one to the wind- 

 ward and the other to the leeward, placing at the latter opening a pot 

 rubbed with an aromatic herb, to receive the insects driven out of their 

 nest by a fire of stinking materials made at the former. 8 Thus they catch great 

 quantities, of which they make with flour a variety of pastry, that they can 

 afford to sell cheap to the poorer people. Mr. Smeathman says he has not 

 found the Africans so ingenious in procuring or dressing them. They are 

 content with a very small part of those that fall into the waters at the 

 time of swarming, which they skim off with calabaches, bring large kettles 

 full of them to their habitations, and parch them in iron pots over a gentle 

 fire, stirring them about as is done in roasting coffee. In that state, 

 without sauce or other addition, they serve them up as delicious food, and 



1 Reaum. ii. 341. Ray's Letters, 135. 5 Sparrman, i. 201. 



4 Sir G. Staunton's Voy. iii. 246. 5 Phytol. 364. 



Bennett's Wanderings, ubi supra, i. 265 270. 



7 Sparrman, i. 363. 



8 Captain Green relates that, in the ceded districts in India, they place the 

 branches of trees over the nests, and then by means of smoke drive out the 

 insects ; which, attempting to fly, their wings are broken off by the mere touch 

 of the branches. 



