336 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



nations as an article of food. This remark, however, 

 applies only to the Termites, and there is no doubt 

 that man must be classed among the enemies who 

 annually watch for the emigration of these insects, 

 with the view of securing them for food. The 

 Indians smoke the nests, and stop the winged insects 

 as they are hastening to escape from their habitation. 

 The natives of Africa, with less industry, content 

 themselves with collecting those which fall into the 

 neighbouring waters. The Indians pound these 

 insects into a paste, and mixing them with flour 

 convert them into a sort of cake ; while the Africans 

 content themselves with roasting them very much 

 in the same manner as coffee beans, eating them by 

 handfuls, and declaring that they thus constitute a 

 most delicious article of food. However strange 

 such viands may appear, they seem to be relished 

 even by Europeans, and all travellers agree in 

 speaking of the Termites, as a savoury and agreeable 

 article of food, resembling in flavour sweetened 

 marrow or cream. Smeathman regards them as a 

 delicate, nourishing, and wholesome food *, and he 

 seems even to prefer them to those famous palm 

 grubs, which in the West Indies are brought to the 

 tables of the rich as an exquisite delicacy. f 



* It would appear, however, that the abuse of this food engenders 

 very serious diseases, and amongst others a kind of epidemic 

 dysentery, which carries off the patient in three or four hours. 



f These grubs, which take their name from the locality in which 

 they are found, are nothing but the larva of a kind of weevil, 

 Calandra palmarum, which during the first two stages of its deve- 

 lopment inhabits the trunk of the palm tree. Some naturalists are 

 of opinion that the larva is the same as that which the Romans 



