VAEIOUS INSECTS EATEN AS FOOD. 355 



of fleshy loaf. Upon this delicacy the natives not only 

 feed, but fatten. The white grub is swallowed whole 

 in his living state, and is much sought for by sable 

 epicures. It is scarcely necessary to say that neither of 

 these dainties have found favour with the white settlers. 



The larva of Mallodon costatus are eaten by the natives 

 of New Caledonia. 



The large and fat caterpillars of Strigops grandis of 

 Australia are eaten by the aborigines. The fat larva of 

 the {Phytophagi ?) coleopteras, which lived in the oaks, 

 figured on the tables of the Romans under the name of 

 Cossus, and the ladies, it is said, esteemed their delicate 

 cream under the impression that it gave them an embon- 

 point, which prolonged their beauty. 



In Africa and other parts, locusts are eaten salted and 

 roasted. The chrysalids of a wild silk worm {Borocera 

 cajani) are esteemed in Madagascar. In an interview 

 which the French Ambassador had with the ill-fated 

 Radami II., his son, a boy of ten years, had his pockets 

 filled with roasted chrysalids, with which he regaled 

 himself during the interview. As we already eat many 

 crustaceans, who can tell whether we may not yet arrive 

 at insects as an hors-d'oeuvre. 



Among the Finos Indians, as among the savages of 

 Africa, tobacco worms, which are the caterpillars of 

 Macrosila Carolina, are gathered and made into soup, or 

 fried until crisp and brown. Vegetables, meal, or seeds 

 are usually added to the composition when made into 

 pottage. A writer in the official agricultural reports of 

 the United States records having seen this tribe gather 

 bushels of the worms for immediate consumption, or to 

 be dried and pounded for winter use. A whitish larva, 

 " koocha-bee " of the Indians, occurring in immense 

 quantities, is much esteemed by them as an article of 

 food. At certain seasons it is carried in by the waves 

 and deposited on the shores of Owen's Lake, California, 

 in layers of several inches in thickness. This was for- 

 merly collected in large quantities by the Indians, and 

 after being dried in the sun, rubbed between the hands, 



AA 2 



