VARIOUS INSECTS EATEN AS FOOD. 351 



which show that insects are by no means despised as 

 food by this tribe of negroes, which inhabit a large por- 

 tion of South-eastern Africa. Toward the end of the 

 rainy season, in April, when the white ants are swarm- 

 ing, the conical buildings of these insects are covered 

 with a dense matting of banana leaves, while, within 

 this cover, vessels are placed with funnel-shaped en- 

 trances. In these vessels a large number of white ants, 

 males and females, are caught and roasted on the spot. 

 They are considered a great delicacy, even Mr. Buchner 

 finding them very palatable. A large, fat, subterranean 

 cricket, as well as a large coleopterous larva, living in 

 hollow trees, are equally sought for and roasted over fire. 

 But it is especially a large caterpillar called "ugoungoo," 

 which is harvested by the natives like a field crop. It 

 is about five centimetres long, black, with yellow rings, 

 occurs on the savannas, and "belongs perhaps to the 

 butterfly Crenis." Whenever it appears in large numbers, 

 the negroes march out in full force from their villages, 

 camping out for weeks in the wilderness to gather and 

 cure the crop. After the intestines have been pressed 

 out, the caterpillars are dried before the fire and rolled 

 up in packages of fresh leaves. To a civilised taste they 

 are most disgusting, the smell reminding one of that of 

 our cabbage worms. In view of this custom it seems to 

 to be strange that the Bantus refuse to eat snakes and 

 amphibia of all sorts, even frogs and lizards not being 

 touched by them in times of starvation. 



Locusts furnish the favourite food of many numerous 

 races of Africa ; some nations live exclusively on them ; 

 but, it is said, they rarely grow older than forty years, 

 and mostly die a miserable death, produced by fearful 

 diseases. Alfred Cole tells us, in his graphic manner, 

 how a whole kraal of Caffres once died after having 

 consumed an unusual quantity of locusts. We read, not 

 without wonder, that even in classic Greece this repul- 

 sive food was not rejected. The same Athenians that, 

 later, wore golden crickets in their hair as proof that 

 they were natives on their own soil, like the insects 



