276 
COLEOPTEEA. 
INSECTS AS FOOD. 
It is a matter of daily observation that many birds and some mam¬ 
mals find that insects are an excellent food and one may wonder that 
man has not found this also. But in nothing are the vagaries and 
caprices of man better shown than in what he will and will not eat, 
and so a very large supply of food has, and apparently will, daily perish. 
Herbivorous insects live in exactly the way a herbivorous mammal 
such as a sheep does, feeding on the tissues of dry or green plants and 
transforming them into animal tissues, which differ little from the tis¬ 
sues of a mammal or bird and are but the concentrated nourishment of 
the living plant; only in many cases they do so far more quickly and 
are far easier and quicker to rear in large quantities. Why then are 
they not more eaten ? It is pure caprice and we know that many insects 
are excellent and nourishing food. Unfortunately, there are not the 
data available to really deal with this subject ; in times of scarcity all 
the world over men have turned to insects and travellers have recorded 
the insects eaten and the expertness of the little-civilised portion of 
mankind in finding them ; but the subject rests in darkness precisely 
because the people who practise this habit are not those of whom much 
is known or whom civilisation reaches ; we fear that the spread of civi¬ 
lisation will lead to the total abolition of these interesting practices 
before we know about them, to the detriment of a later generation which 
will have to rediscover by experiment which are and which are not, good 
to eat; unless they adopt the 4 4 monkey ’ ’ test. It is stated in books 
that what a monkey will eat is good food for man ; it is certain that 
monkeys eat insects with avidity excepting the extremely nauseous 
ones with warning colouring. Mankind eats many curious things, in¬ 
cluding oysters, shrimps, whelks and cockles, dried sea slugs (Holothu- 
rians), and birds’ nests ; the most civilised nation is addicted to eating 
snails, even uncooked ; and yet there is an absurd prejudice against 
insects, not universal, but certainly covering the more civilised portions 
of mankind. We may doubt if the deterioration in natural instincts 
that civilisation brings is not revealed in the races that eat so nauseous, 
deadly and unappetising a thing as an oyster and refuse to consider 
a nice clean white termite queen or a dish of locusts. 
Among the few items of Entomology of this kind, the fact is on 
record that in Assam, the large bugs of the genus Aspongopus are eaten 
with rice ; in Burmah, the red ant (GEcophylla smaragdina) is reported 
to be a delicacy, its pungent flavour relieving the monotony of the daily 
fare. Locusts are appreciated in many parts of India and it is said that 
dried locusts form an ingredient of curries even in Calcutta, where a 
locust swarm is looked on as a providential occurrence. In Burmah, 
the larvse of an aquatic beetle are collected and eaten ; this is the 
beetle, Eretes (Eunectes) sticticus, apparently the commonest species 
of Dytiscidse in India. The following observations of this insect in 
Burmah, are by J. Carey, Esq., Sub-Divisional Officer ;— 
