DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 307 



stantinople, where they are regularly exposed in the 

 market 9 . The galls of ground-ivy have also been eaten 

 in France ; but Reaumur, who tasted them, is doubtful 

 whether they will ever rank with good fruits 5 . 



To the Diptcra order, as a source of food, man can 

 scarcely be said to be under any obligation ; the larva of 

 Musca putris, which is so commonly found in cheese, 

 being the only one ever eaten — a dainty as some think 

 it, of whom you will perhaps say with Scopoli, " quibus 

 has delicias non invideo c ." 



The order Aptera^ now that the Crustacea are ex- 

 cluded, does not much more abound in esculent insects 

 than the Diptera. The only species which have tempted 

 the appetite of man in this order are the cheese-mite 

 (Acarus Siro) — lice, which are eaten by the Hottentots 

 and natives of the westerji coast of Africa, who from 

 their love of this game, which they not only collect them- 

 selves from their well stored capital pasture, but employ 

 their wives in the chase, have been sometimes called 

 Phthirophagi d — and another tribe which you will think 

 even more repulsive than the last, I mean spiders. These 

 form an article in Sparrman's list of the Boshies-man's 

 dainties e ; and Labillardiere tells us that the inhabitants 

 of New Caledonia seek for and eat with avidity large 

 quantities of a spider nearly an inch long (which he calls 

 Aranea edulis), and which they roast over the fire f . 

 Even individuals amongst the more polished nations of 



a Smith's Introd. to Bot. 346. Olivier's Travels, i. 139. 

 b Reaum. iii. 416. c Scop. Carniol. 337, 



d Lat. Hist. Nat. viii. 93. e Sparrman, i. 201, 



f Voyage a la recherche de la Perome, ii. 240. 

 X 2 



