222 The Rocky Mountain Locust. 



sheer lack of food, while the St. Louis papers reported 

 cases of actual death from starvation in some sections of 

 Missouri, where the insects abounded and ate up every 

 green thing in the spring of 1875. 



Whenever the occasion presented, I partook of locusts 

 prepared in different ways, and, one day, ate of no other 

 kind of food, and must have consumed, in one way and 

 another, the substance of several thousand half-grown 

 locusts. Commencing the experiments with some misgiv- 

 ings, and fully expecting to have to overcome disagreeable 

 flavor, I was soon most agreeably surprised to find that the 

 insects were quite palatable, in whatever way prepared. 

 The flavor of the raw locust is most strong and disagree- 

 able, but that of the cooked insects is agreeable, and suffi- 

 ciently mild to be easily neutralized by anything with 

 which they may be mixed, and to admit of easy disguise, 

 according to taste or fancy. But the great point I would 

 make in their favor is, that they need no elaborate prep- 

 aration or seasoning, and that they really require no dis- 

 guise, and herein lies their value in exceptional emergen- 

 cies ; for when people are driven to the point of starvation 

 by these ravenous pests, it follows that all other food is 

 either very scarce or unattainable. A broth, made by 

 boiling the unfledged Calopteni for two hours in the proper 

 quantity of water, and seasoned with nothing in the world 

 but pepper and salt, is quite palatable, and can scarcely be 

 distinguished from beef broth, though it has a slight flavor 

 peculiar to it, and not easily described. The addition of a 

 little butter improves it, and the flavor can, of course, be 

 modified with mint, sage and other spices, ad libitum. 

 Fried or roasted in nothing but their own oil, with the 

 addition of a little salt, and they are by no means unpleas- 

 ant eating, and have quite a nutty flavor. In fact, it is a 

 flavor, like most peculiar and not unpleasant flavors, that 



