220 The Rocky Mountain Locust. 



the thorax, certain dark markings — the species used being 

 the Acridium perigrinum, which is so injurious to 

 crops. Radoszkowski, President of the Russian Ento- 

 mological Society, tells me that they are also, to this day, 

 extensively used as food in Southern Russia ; while many 

 of our North American Indian tribes, and notably the 

 Snake and Digger Indians of California, are known to 

 feed upon them. No further evidence need be cited to 

 prove the present extensive use of these insects as articles 

 of food. Let us then briefly consider the nature of this 

 locust food, and the different methods of preparing it. 



The records show us that in ancient times these insects 

 were cooked in a variety of ways. (Edipoda migratoria 

 and Acridium perigrinum, which are the more common 

 devastating locusts of the " Old World," are both of large 

 size, and they are generally prepared by first detaching the 

 legs and wings. The bodies are then boiled, roasted, stewed, 

 fried or broiled. The Romans are said to have used them 

 by carefully roasting them to a bright golden yellow. At 

 the present day, in most parts of Africa, and especially in 

 Russia, they are either salted or smoked like red herrings. 

 Chenier, in his account of the Empire of Morocco (Lon- 

 don, 1788), says that thus cured, they are brought into the 

 market in prodigious quantities, but that they have "an 

 oily and rancid taste, which habit only can render agree- 

 able." The Moors use them, to the present day, in the 

 manner described by Jackson in his " Travels in Morocco," 

 viz., by first boiling and then frying them ; but the Jews, 

 in that country — more provident than the Moors — salt 

 them and keep them for using with the dish called Dqfi?ia, 

 which forms the Saturday's dinner of the Jewish popula- 

 tion. The dish is made by placing meat, fish, eggs, toma- 

 toes — in fact, almost anything edible — in a jar, which is 

 placed in the oven on Friday night, and taken out hot on 



