258 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



earth where it takes its growth : that it then becomes a Tet- 

 tigometra ( pupa), when he observes they are most dehcious, 

 just before they burst from their covering. From this state 

 they change to the Tettix or Cicada, when the males at first 

 have the best flavour ; but after impregnation the females are 

 preferred on account of their white eggs.^ Athenasus also 

 and Aristophanes mention their being eaten ; and ^lian is 

 extremely angry with the men of his age, that an animal 

 sacred to the Muses should be strung, sold, and greedily de- 

 voured.^ Pliny tells us that the nations of the East, even 

 the Parthians, whose wealth was abundant, use them as food.^ 

 The imago of the Cicada septemdecim is still eaten by the 

 Indians in America, who pluck off the wings and boil them * ; 

 and the aborigines of New South Wales, as we learn from 

 Mr. Bennett, formerly used various species of the Cicadidce 

 as food, stripping oiF the wings and eating them raw. They 

 are aware that the sounds made by these insects which they 

 call galang-galang, are peculiar to the males, and depend upon 

 their drums, observing to Mr. Bennett, in their peculiar 

 English, " Old woman galang-galang no got, no make a noise." ^ 



This ancient Greek taste for CicadcB seems now much gone 

 out of fashion ; but perhaps if it were revived in those coun- 

 tries where the insects are to be found, for they inhabit only 

 warm climates ^, it would be ascertained that so polished a 

 people did not relish them without reason. 



No insects are more numerous in this island than the cater- 

 pillars of Lepidoptera : if these could be used in aid of the 

 stock of food in times of scarcity, it might subserve the 

 double purpose of ridding us of a nuisance, and relieving the 

 public pressure. Reaumur suggests this mode of diminishing 

 the numbers of destructive caterpillars, speaking of that of 

 Plusia Gamma, a moth which did such infinite mischief in 

 France in the year 1735.^ If, however, we were to take to 



1 Arist. Hist. An. 1. v. c. 30. 



2 Vide Bochart, Hieroz. ii. 1. 4. c. 7. 491. 



3 Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 26. 4 p. Collinson in Phil. Trans. 1763. n. x. 



5 Bennett's Wanderings in New South Wales, i. 237., quoted in Entom. Mag. 

 iii. 211. 



6 One species however has been found in Hampshire in the New Forest. 

 See Samouelle's Entomologist'' s Useful Compendium, t. 5. f. 2. 



7 Reaum. ii. 341. 



