DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 1?7 



their wives in the chase, have been sometimes called Phthirophagi. 1 

 Insects of the class Arachnida, which you will think still more repulsive 

 than the last tribe, form an article in Sparrman's list of the Boshies-man's 

 dainties 2 ; and Labillardiere tells us that the inhabitants of New Caledonia 

 seek for and eat with avidity large quantities of a spider nearly an inch 

 long (which he calls Aranea edulis\ and which they roast over the fire. 3 

 Even individuals amongst the more polished nations of Europe are re- 

 corded 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. 4 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? If you wish for the authority of the learned, 

 Lalande the celebrated French astronomer was, as Latreille witnessed 6 , 

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

 them seriatim, you should feel desirous of eating them by handfuls, you 

 may shelter yourself under the authority of the German immortalised by 

 Rosel 7 , who used to spread them upon his bread like butter, observing 

 that he found them very useful, " urn sick auszulaxiren" t 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 devour them. 8 



After all I have said, you may perhaps still feel a prejudice against 

 insects as food ; but I think, when you recollect that Oberon and his 

 queen Titania, that renowned personage Robin Goodfellow, " with all the 

 fairy elves that be," number insects amongst their choicest cates, you will 

 no longer be heretical in this article, but yield with a good grace ; and as 

 a reward I will copy out for you a beautiful poetical description of 

 Oberon's feast, which was pointed out to me by a learned bibliographical 

 friend, John Crosse, Esq. of Hull, in Herrick's Hesperides, 1658. 



" Shapcot, to thee the fairy state 

 I with discretion dedicate ; 

 Because thou prizest things that are 

 Curious and unfamiliar. 

 Take first the feast ; these dishes gone, 

 We'll see the fairy court anon. 

 A little mushroom table spread ; 

 After short prayers, they set on bread, 

 A moon-parch'd grain of purest wheat, 

 With some small glitt'ring grit to eat 

 His choicest bits with ; then in a trice 

 They make a feast less great than nice. 

 But all this while his eye is served, 

 We must not think his ear was starved ; 

 But that there was in place to stir 

 His spleen, the chirring grasshopper, 



1 Latr. Hist. Nat. viii. 93. a Sparrman. i. 201. 



5 Voyage a fa Recherche de la Perouse, ii. 240. * Reaum. ii. 342. 



Shaw, Nat. Misc. Hist. Nat. vii. 227. * 



7 Rosel, iv. 257. Personal Travels, ii. 205. 



N 7 



