202 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
considered the greatest delicacies. The eggs of the cro¬ 
codile are taken in large numbers in some parts of the 
island : and the Missionaries have seen as many as five 
hundred eggs gathered for food by one family. Their 
lighter kinds of animal food, like that of the Africans on 
the adjacent continent, comprises locusts and several sorts 
of grasshoppers. 
Large swarms of locusts are often seen in Madagascar 
in the spring and summer. They generally approach the 
central parts of the island from the southern and western 
quarter, and pass like a desolating scourge over the face 
of the country, leaving the trees and shrubs entirely leaf¬ 
less, and destroying the plantations of rice and manioc, 
and whatever the gardens contained. Their appearance 
on approaching is like a dense cloud of considerable 
extent, the lowest part of which is about two feet above 
the ground, while the upper part rises to a great elevation. 
The natives, on the approach of the locusts, fly to their 
gardens, and, by shouts and noises of the most tumultuous 
kind, endeavour to prevent their alighting. In the uncul¬ 
tivated parts of the country, they often dig holes, of large 
dimensions, and nearly a foot deep, in which great quantities 
are collected and taken ; or they arrest them in their flight 
by means of wide shallow baskets, or by striking them down 
with their lambas, after which they are gathered up in 
baskets by the women and children. The locusts form at 
times an important article of food; for this purpose they 
are caught as above described, slightly cooked, and eaten, 
after the legs and wings have been picked off; or they are 
partially boiled in large iron or earthen vessels, dried in 
the sun, and repeatedly winnowed, in order to clear the 
bodies from the legs and wings; they are afterwards packed 
up in baskets, and carried to the market for sale, or 
