DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 211 



dressed in this way several times, and thought them dehcate, nourishing, 

 and wholesome, being sweeter than the grub of the weevil of the palms 

 (^Cordylia Palmnrum), and resembling in taste sugared cream or sweet 

 almond paste. ^ The female ant, in particular, is supposed by the Hindoos 

 to be endowed with highly nutritive properties, and, we are told by Mr. 

 Broughton, was carefully sought after and preserved for the use of the 

 debilitated Surjee Rao, prime-minister of Scindia, chief of the Mahrattas.^ 



The Hymenoptera order also furnishes a few articles to add to this 

 head. I do not allude to the nectar which the bees collect for us. But 

 perhaps you do not suspect that bees themselves in some places serve for 

 food, yet Knox tells us that they are eaten in Ceylon^ : — an ungrateful return 

 for their honey and wax, which I would on no account recommend. Piso 

 speaks of yellow ants called Cupia inhabiting Brazil, the abdomen of which 

 many used for food, as well as a larger species under the name of Tama- 

 joura'^ ; which account is confirmed by Humboldt, who informs us that 

 ants are eaten by the Marivatanos and Margueriiares, mixed with resin for 

 sauce ; as are those of Yariba in Africa, as Lander informs us, stewed in 

 butter. Ants, I speak from experience, have no unpleasant flavor; they 

 are very agreeably acid, and the taste of the trunk and abdomen is dif- 

 ferent ; so that I am not so much surprised, as Mr. Consett seems to have 

 been, at the avidity with which the young Swede mentioned by him sat 

 down to the siege of an ants' nest.^ This author states, that in some parts 

 of Sweden ants are distilled along with rye, to give a flavor to the inferior 

 kinds of brandy.^ Under this head may not improperly be mentioned 

 several galls, the product of different species of gall-flies (^Ci/nips), par- 

 ticularly those found on some kinds of Sage, viz. Salvia pomifera, S. 

 triloba, tind S. ojicinalis, which are very juicy like apples, and crowned 

 with rudiments of leaves resembling the calyx of that fruit. They are 

 esteemed in the Levant for their aromatic and acid flavor, especially when 

 prepared with sugar, and form a considerable article of commerce from 

 Scio to Constantinople, where they are regularly exposed in the market.^ 

 The galls of ground-ivy have also been eaten in France ; but Reaumur, 

 who tasted them, is doubtful whether they will ever rank with good fruits.^ 



To the Diptera order, as a source of food, man can scarcely be said to 

 be under any obligation ; the larva of Tyrophaga casei, which is so com- 

 monly found in cheese, being the only one ever eaten — a dainty as some 

 think it, of whom you will perhaps say with Scopoli, " quibus has delicias 

 non itivideo.''^ 



The order Aptera, now that the Crustacea are excluded, does not much 

 more abound in esculent insects than the Diptera. The only species 

 which have tempted the appetite of man in this order are the cheese-mite 

 (Acarus Siro) — lice, which are eaten by the Hottentots and natives of 

 the western coast of Africa, who, from their love of this game, which 

 they not only collect themselves from their well-stored capital pasture, 

 but employ their wives in the chase, have been sometimes called Fhthi- 

 rophagi}^ Insects of the class Arachnida, which you will think still more 



' Smeathman, 31. 



* Letters written in a Mahratta Camp in 1809. * Knox's Ceylon, 25. 



* Piso, Ind. 1. V. c. 13. 291. » Travels in Sweden, 118. « Ibid. 



7 Smith's Introd. to But. 346. Olivier's Travels, i. 139. 



8 Reaum. iii. 416. » Scop. Carniol. 337. "> Lair. Hist. Nat. viii, 93. 



