260 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM mSECTS. 



and soon get into good condition upon this food.^ Konig, 

 quoted by Smeatliman, says that in some parts of the East 

 Indies the natives make two holes in the nests of the white 

 ants, one to the windward and the other to the leeward, 

 placing at the latter opening a pot rubbed with an aromatic 

 herb, to receive the insects driven out of their nest by a fire 

 of stinking materials made at the former.^ Thus they catch 

 great quantities, of which they make with flour a variety of 

 pastry, that they can alFord to sell cheap to the poorer people. 

 Mr. Smeathman says he has not found the Africans so inge- 

 nious in procuring or dressing them. They are content with 

 a very small part of those that fall into the waters at the time 

 of swarming, which they skim off with calabashes, bring large 

 kettles full of them to their habitations, and parch them in 

 iron pots over a gentle fire, stirring them about as is done in 

 roasting coffee. In that state, without sauce or other addition, 

 they serve them up as delicious food, and eat them by hand- 

 fuls as we do comfits. He has eaten them dressed in this 

 way several times, and thought them delicate, nourishing, and 

 wholesome, being sweeter than the grub of the weevil of the 

 palms (yCordylia Palmarum), and resembling in taste sugared 

 cream or sweet almond paste.^ The female ant, in particular, 

 is supposed by the Hindoos to be endowed with highly nu- 

 tritive properties, and, we " are told by Mr. Broughton, was 

 carefully sought after and preserved for the use of the de- 

 bilitated Surjee Rao, prime-minister of Scindia, chief of the 

 Mahrattas.^ 



The Hymenoptera order also furnishes a few articles to add 

 to this head. I do not allude to the nectar which the bees 

 collect for us. But perhaps you do not suspect that bees 

 themselves in some places serve for food, yet Knox tells us 

 that they are eaten in Ceylon ^ : — an ungrateful return for 



1 Sparrman, i, 363. 



2 Captain Green relates that, in the ceded districts in India, they place the 

 branches of trees over the nests, and then by means of smoke drive out the 

 insects ; which, attempting to fly, their wings are broken off by the mere touch 

 of the branches. 



3 Smeathman, 31. 



4 Letters written in a Mahratta Camp in 1809. 

 ^ Knox's Ceylon, 25. 



