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LETTER X. 

 BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 

 DIRECT BENEFITS. 



My last letter was devoted to the indirect advantages which 

 we derive from insects ; in the present I shall enumerate 

 those of a more direct nature for which we are indebted to 

 them, beginning with their use as the food of man, in which 

 respect they are of more importance than you may have con- 

 ceived. 



One class of animals, Avhich, till very lately, have been 

 regarded as belonging to the entomological world, I mean the 

 Crustacea, consisting principally of the genus Cancer of 

 Linne, are universally reckoned amongst our greatest dain- 

 ties ; and they who would turn with disgust from a locust or 

 the grub of a beetle, feel no symptoms of nausea when a 

 lobster, crab, or shrimp is set before them. The fact is, that 

 habit has reconciled us to the eating of these last, which, 

 viewed in themselves, with their threatening claws and many 

 feet, are really more disgusting than the former. Had the 

 habit been reversed, we should have viewed the former with 

 appetite and the latter with abhorrence, as do the Arabs, 

 " who are as much astonished at our eating crabs, lobsters, 

 and oysters, as we are at their eating locusts." ^ That this 

 would have been the case is clear, at least as far as regards 

 the former position, from the practice in other parts of the 

 world, both in ancient and modern times, to which, begging 

 you to lay aside your English prejudices, I shall now call 

 your attention; first observing by the way, that the insects 

 used as food, generally speaking, live on vegetable substances, 

 and are consequently much more select and cleanly in their 



1 Walpole in Clark's Travels,n. 187. Even Mr. Boyle speaks with abhor- 

 rence of eating raw oysters. — Walton's Angler^ Life, p. 12. 



