176 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 
eat them by handfuls as we do comfits. He has eaten them dressed in 
this way several times, and thought them delicate, nourishing, and whole- 
some, being sweeter than the grub of the weevil of the palms (Cordylia 
Palmarum), and resembling in taste sugared cream or sweet almond paste.? 
The female ant, in particular, is supposed by the Hindoos to be endowed 
with highly nutritive properties, and, we are told by Mr. Broughton, was 
carefully sought after and preserved for the use of the debilitated Surjee 
Rao, prime-minister of Scindia, chief of the Mahrattas.? 
——The Hymenoptera order also furnishes a few articles to add to this head, 
I do not allude to the nectar which the bees collect for us. But perhaps 
you do not suspect that bees themselves in some places serve for food, yet 
Knox tells us that they are eaten in Ceylon¢:—an ungrateful return for 
their honey and wax, which I would on no account recommend. Piso 
speaks of yellow ants called Cupid inhabiting Brazil, the abdomen of which 
many used for food, as well as a larger species under the name of Zama- 
joura*; which account is confirmed by Humboldt, who informs us that 
ants are eaten by the Marivatanos and Margueritares, mixed with resin for 
sauce; as are those of Yaribain Africa, as Lander informs us, stewed in 
butter. Ants, I speak from experience, have no unpleasant flavour ; they 
are very agreeably acid, and the taste of the trunk and abdomen is 
different ; so that I am not so much surprised, as Mr. Consett seems to have 
been, at the avidity with which the young Swede mentioned by him sat 
down to the siege of an ant’s nest.° This author states, that in some parts 
of Sweden ants are distilled along with rye, to give a flavour to the inferior 
kinds of brandy. Under this head may not improperly be mentioned 
several galls, the product of different species of gall-flies (Cynips), particu- 
larly those found on some kinds of Sage, viz. Salvia pomifera, S. triloba, and 
§. officinalis, which are very juicy like apples, and crowned with rudiments 
of leaves resembling the calyx of that fruit. They are esteemed in the 
Levant for their aromatic and acid flavour, especially when prepared with 
sugar, and form a considerable article of commerce from Scio to Con- 
stantinople, where they are regularly exposed in the market.’ 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.® 
— To the Diptera order, as a source of food, man can scarcely be said to 
be under any obligation; the larva of Z'yrophaga casei, which is so com- 
monly 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,” ® 
The order Aptera, now that the Crustacea are excluded, 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 
western coast of Africa, who, from their love of this game, which they not 
only collect themselves from their well-stored capital pasture, but employ 
1 Smeathman, 81. 
2 Letters written in a Mahratta Camp in 1809. 
$3 Knox’s Ceylon, 25. 
4 Piso, Ind. v. c, 18, 291. 6 Travels in Sweden, 118. 6 Tbid, 
7 Smith’s Introd to Bot, 846, Olivier’s Travels, i. 189. 
8 Reaum. iii, 416, ® Scop. Carniol. 337. 
