VAEIOUS INSECTS EATEN AS FOOD. 349 



The Goliath beetles are roasted and eaten by the 

 natives of South America and Western Africa, and the 

 Roman epicures were very partial to certain breeds of 

 European larvae. 



The famous palm-worm of the West Indies, roasted 

 on tiny spits and richly spiced, forms one of the best 

 dishes of luxurious dinners. Its near relation, the 

 grugru worm of Java, is said to be richer still and 

 more delicate. Nor do the costly chrysalids of the 

 silk- worm escape the fate of all that is eatable; freed 

 from their cocoons, and daintily dressed, they are 

 highly honoured and largely swallowed by the people 

 of China and the noblemen of Madagascar. The dis- 

 carded chrysalids after reeling silk from the cocoons 

 are hawked about the streets of China and sold to 

 the lower classes as an article of diet. The price is 

 about .5d. per pound. 



At Chinkiang they are sold at thirty-four dollars per 

 picul of 133J lbs. The Chinese, with their incredible 

 power of overcoming all natural instincts, go here also 

 farther ; they raise the larvae of blue-bottle flies in 

 heaps of putrid fish near the sea-coast, and value the 

 produce more highly than the facility of obtaining it 

 would lead us to believe. They place themselves thus, 

 with all their boasted superiority, on a level with the 

 poor Indians of the Orinoco, whom the traveller Schom- 

 burgk saw eagerly dig in the ground for grubs and 

 worms. It is true they ate them raw, while the children 

 of the Flowery Kingdom dress their worms with spices 

 and sauces. Huge centipedes are eagerly devoured by 

 the Indians of South America, and leeches adorn the 

 tables of the very princes of Japan. 



If the palate has, like the eye, its laws of beauty, 

 which would lead it to prefer nobler forms, insects ought 

 to be eaten as little as molluscs. They are rarely blessed 

 with a beauty that is intended for other senses but the 

 sight; their long, dry bodies, their restless, countless 

 feet and quaintly-shaped heads are interesting in their 

 ugliness, but far from attractive to the hungry. What 



