DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 305 



two holes iii the nests of the white ants, one to the wind- 

 ward and the other to the leeward, placing at the latter 

 opening a pot rubbed with an aromatic herb, to receive 

 the insects driven out of their nest by a fire of stinking 

 materials made at the former a . Thus they catch great 

 quantities, of which they make with flour a variety of 

 pastry, that they can afford to sell cheap to the poorer 

 people. Mr. Smeathman says he has not found the 

 Africans so ingenious in procuring or dressing them. 

 They are content with a very small part of those that 

 fall into the waters at the time of swarming, which they 

 skim off with calabashes, bring large kettles full of them 

 to their habitations, and parch them in iron pots over a 

 gentle fire, stirring them about as is done in roasting 

 coffee. In that state without sauce or other addition 

 they serve them up as delicious food, and eat them by 

 handfulls as we do comfits. He has eaten them dressed 

 in this way several times, and thought them delicate, 

 nourishing and wholesome, being sweeter than the grub 

 of the weevil of the palms, {Calandra Palmarum,) and 

 resembling in taste sugared cream or sweet almond 

 paste 11 . The female ant, in particular, is supposed by 

 the Hindoos to be endowed with highly nutritive pro- 

 perties, and, we are told by Mr. Broughton, was care- 

 fully sought after and preserved for the use of the debi- 

 litated Surjee Rao, prime minister of Scindia chief of 

 the Mahrattas c . 



a Captain Green relates that, in the ceded districts in India, they 

 place thebranches of trees over thenests, and then by means of smoke 

 drive out the insects; which attempting to fly, their wings are broken 

 off by the mere touch of the branches. 



b Smeathman, 31. c Letters written in a Mahratta Camp in 1809. 



VOL. I. X 



