358 ANIMAL FOOD RESOURCES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



the American Revolution. In Frederick Freeman's 

 " History of Cape Cod" (vol. i., p. 524), the author men- 

 tions that Col. Nathaniel Freeman, of Sandwich, Mass. 

 and Major Samuel Osgood, of Andover, Mass., were ap- 

 pointed Commissioners, in 1777, to attend to some busi- 

 ness in the American camp at West Point. He then 

 adds, in a footnote : — 



" One of the Commissioners above named related to 

 the writer that when on this service at West Point, the 

 attention of the Commissioners w^as arrested by certain 

 inexplicable movements among the French troops en- 

 camped at some distance from the Americans. Perceiving 

 that they had kindled numerous fires in the adjoining 

 fields, and were running about in strange disorder, Major 

 Osgood and himself, accompanied by General Washington 

 and other officers, mounted horses and rode to the en- 

 campment. It was found that the Frenchmen were enjoy- 

 ing rare sport in a campaign against grasshoppers, which 

 were unusually numerous at that time. These insects, 

 as soon as captured, were impaled upon a sharpened 

 stick on posts, and held for a moment over the fire, and 

 then eaten with great giisto. The fires were furnished 

 with fuel of deposits from cattle in the fields, made by 

 the excessive heat and drought of the autumn suf- 

 ficiently dry and combustible." 



From a digested paper by Mr. W. F. Kirby, naturalist, 

 Dublin, and papers by Mr. Riley, I condense the follow- 

 ing details on the use of this insect as food : — With the 

 exception of locusts, most other insects that have been 

 used as food for man are obtained in small quantities, and 

 their use is more a matter of curiosity than of interest. 

 They have been employed either by exceptional indi- 

 viduals with perverted tastes, or else as dainty tit-bits 

 to tickle some abnormal and epicurean palate. Not so 

 with locusts, which have, from time immemorial, formed 

 a staple article of diet with many peoples, and are 

 used to-day in large quantities in many parts of the 

 globe. 



Any one at all familiar with the treasures on exhibi- 



