368 ANIMAL FOOD RESOUECES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS 



It is a well ascertained fact that locusts are in Arabia 

 and Northern Africa used as food now, as well as in 

 former times. They also form an article of commerce. 

 The inhabitants usually tear off their wings and wing 

 coverts and then bake them. Gryllus lineola, Fabr., 

 seems to be the species which is eaten and prepared in 

 the manner above detailed in Barbary. The natives of ' 

 Senegal dry another species, of which the body is yellow, 

 spotted with black, and which Shaw and Denon have 

 figured in the account of their Voyage in Africa ; they 

 then reduce them to powder which they use as flour. 

 Capt. Burton tells us that the black leather-like variety 

 of locust called by the Arabs " Satan's ass," is eaten by 

 the Africans, as are many other edibles upon which 

 strangers look with disgust. 



There is some compensation in the circumstance that 

 if the locusts devour the food of man they are themselves 

 a source of food. In Morocco they are collected in sacks 

 by night, and first boiled in salt and water, and then 

 fried. Only the softer part of the body is eaten, much 

 as we eat prawns, which they resemble in taste. They 

 are considered to be wholesome food, and in perfection 

 as soon as the insects can fly. 



The inhabitants of Madagascar are ill fed for half the 

 year; they prefer fried grasshoppers and silkworms, 

 esteeming the latter a great delicacy. The author of " A 

 Mission to Ava" also speaks of them as a Burmese 

 dainty. 



" The most notable viand produced consisted of fried 

 locusts. These were brought in, hot and hot, in successive 

 saucers, and I was not sorry to have the opportunity of 

 tasting a dish so famous. They were by no means bad, 

 much like what we might suppose fried shrimps to be. 

 The inside is removed, and the cavity stuffed with a 

 little spiced meat." 



The locusts seem to be one of the greatest plagues of 

 the Philippines, and sometimes destroy the harvests of 

 entire provinces. It is the CEdipoda suhfasciata, Haan ; 

 Acridium Manikme, Meyer ; but the species does not belong 



