General Considerations . 



219 



at the British Museum, must have noticed among its 

 Xineveh sculptures, one in which are represented men 

 carrying different kinds of meat to some festival, and 

 among them some who carry long sticks to which are tied 

 locusts — thus indicating that in those early days, repre- 

 sented by the sculpture, locusts were sufficiently esteemed 

 to make part of a public feast. They are counted among- 

 the " clean meats " in Leviticus (xi, 22), and are referred 

 to in other parts of the Bible, as food for man. In most 

 parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, subject to locust ravages, 

 these insects have been, and are yet, extensively used as 

 food. Herodotus mentions a tribe of ^Ethiopians "which 

 fed on locusts which came in swarms from the southern 

 and unknown districts," and Livingstone has made us 

 familiar with the fact that the locust-feeding custom pre- 

 vails among many African tribes. Indeed, some tribes 

 have been called Acridophagi, from the almost exclusive 

 preference they give to this diet. We have it from Pliny 

 that locusts were in high esteem among the Parthians, and 

 the records of their use in ancient times, as food, in South- 

 ern Europe and Asia, are abundant. This use continues 

 in those parts of the world to the present day. 



In Morocco (as I am informed by Mr. Trovey Blackmore, 

 of London, who has spent some time in that country) they 

 do more or less damage every year, and are used exten- 

 sively for food whenever they so abound as to diminish the 

 ordinary food-supply ; while they are habitually roasted 

 for eating and brought into Tangier and other towns by 

 the country people and sold in the market places and on 

 the streets. The Jews, who form a large proportion of 

 the population, collect the females only for this purpose — 

 having an idea that the male is unclean, but that under 

 the body of the female there are some Hebrew characters 

 which make them lawful food. In reality there are, under 



