DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 303 



by the polished Greeks, and accounted very delicious. 

 The worm (larva), he says, lives in the earth where it 

 takes its growth; that it then becomes a Tettigometra 

 (pupa), when he observes they are most delicious, just 

 before they burst from their covering. From this state 

 they change to the Tettix or Cicada, when the males at 

 first have the best flavour ; but after impregnation the 

 females are preferred on account of their white eggs a . 

 Athenaeus also and Aristophanes mention their being 

 eaten ; and iElian is extremely angry with the men of 

 his age that an animal sacred to the Muses should be 

 strung, sold, and greedily devoured b . Pliny tell us that 

 the nations of the East, even the Parthians, whose wealth 

 was abundant, use them as food . The imago of the 

 Tettigonia septemdecim is still eaten by the Indians in 

 America, who pluck off the wings and boil them d . This 

 ancient Greek taste for Tettigoniae seems now gone out 

 of fashion, at least travellers do not notice it : but per- 

 haps if it were revived in those countries where the in- 

 sects are to be found, for they inhabit only warm cli- 

 mates e , it would be ascertained that so polished a people 

 did not relish them without reason. 



No insects are more numerous in this island than the 

 caterpillars of Lepidoptera : if these could be used in 

 aid of the stock of food in times of scarcity, it might sub- 

 serve the double purpose of ridding us of a nuisance, 

 and relieving the public pressure. Reaumur suggests 



a Arist. Hist. An. 1. v. c. 30. b Vide Bochart, Hieroz.il 1. 4. c. 7- 491. 



c Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 26. d P. Collinson in Phil. Trans. 1763. n. x. 



° One species however has been found in Hampshire in the New 



Forest. See Samouelle's Entomologist's useful Compendium, t. v./. 2. 



