a 
TERMITES (WHITE ANTS). 105 
termites are systematically collected for the purposes of food immediately prior to their 
emergence from their nests. Mixed with flour, they are made into various descriptions 
of pastry, which is sold at a low rate to the poorer classes. It would appear that 
a too abundant use of this description of food occasions a form of colic and dysentery 
that is speedily fatal. In West Africa, Smeathman deposes, the natives content 
themselves with securing those of the swarming millions that have fallen upon the 
surface of neighbouring water. These they skim off with a calabash, carry to 
their habitation in kettles-full and parch them in iron pots over a gentle fire, 
stirring them continually after the manner of roasting coffee. Thus prepared, and 
without any additional materials, they regard them as the most delicious food, 
putting handsful into their mouths at a time, much as a European youth might 
devour comfits. Smeathman’s personal attestation as to the edible properties of the 
West African Termites is highly favourable. He speaks to having frequently 
partaken of them prepared in the manner above described, and to having found them 
delicate, nourishing, and wholesome; something sweeter than, but not so fat and 
cloying as the grub of the Palm-tree beetle, Curculio palmarum. Other gentlemen of 
Smeathman’s acquaintance acquiesced in their being most delicious eating, one com- 
paring them to sugared marrow, and another to sugared cream and a paste of sweet 
almonds. . 
It is a remarkable fact that, so far as the author has been able to ascertain, 
Termites are not turned to account as an article of diet by the natives of 
Australia. On the other hand, it has been observed by him in the Kimberley district 
of Western Australia that the aborigines are in the habit of devouring large 
quantities of the earthy substance of the White Ant mounds or termitaria. Frequently, 
in the course of walking expeditions, the author has seen the natives step aside 
and break off and eat a handful of this substance, usually from a hillock which 
the termites had abandoned or from which they had died out, and which was con- 
sequently in a more or less disintegrated state. This earth-eating propensity was not 
analogous to that recorded by Humboldt of the Otomac tribe on the Orinoco, for the 
purpose of alleviating the pangs of hunger in the absence of better food. In this case 
the partakers were native retainers of Australian settlers, who had an abundance of 
provisions at command. As White Ant hillocks or termitaries contain a large 
amount of proteaceous matter in the form both of secretions by their constructors 
and of adventitiously growing microscopic fungi, it would appear probable that it is 
the presence of these materials that makes the component earth palatable to the 
Oo 
