HALIPLIDJE. 
279 
and when they wish to carry their luxury to an extreme, they give them 
but a single boil in water, and afterwards fry them in butter. The 
inhabitants of Morocco dry them on the roofs of terraces of their houses 
and eat them either smoked or broiled or boiled. Other people of Bar¬ 
bary preserve them in pickle. According to Forsksel, there is no great 
relish in this aliment, and if used to too great a degree, it thickens the 
blood, and becomes injurious to melancholic temperaments.’ 5 
That the art of cooking insects is not extinct is shown by the fol¬ 
lowing extract from Harry Roberts’ 44 The Tramp’s Handbook ” (1903, 
p. 121). 45 The larvae of cockchafers fried with a little salt and pepper 
are not to be despised, and many of our common caterpillars—including 
those of the cabbage white butterfly and of the currant moth—may be 
cooked in the same way.” 
The cabbage white butterfly is our Pieris brassicce, abundant occa¬ 
sionally in Behar in April; this insect may then prove to be a 
blessing in disguise. 
Haliplid^i. 
Posterior coxae produced behind in a plate partly covering the abdo¬ 
men. Antennae bare , ten-jointed. 
A small family distinct by the coxae from Carabidce and Dytiscidce. 
The antennae are ten-jointed, inserted near the eyes ; the scutellum is 
absent; the tarsi are narrow as in 
Carabidae, and not formed for swim¬ 
ming ; in the males the basal three 
joints in the anterior legs are slightly 
dilated. These small beetles are 
found in fresh water, such as ponds 
and streams; they have a habit of 
coming out to gather on plants near 
the water and may sometimes be 
captured in numbers. No Indian 
species seems to have been reared and 
but a very few species are known from 
India at all. Cardon’s collections 
yielded Haliplus pulchellus, CL, and 
H. angustifrons , Reg. The latter is a 
small yellow brown insect with black speckles, found also at light. 
(Plate XYI, fig. 10.) 
Fig. 156 .—Haliplus angustifrons, 
VENTRAL VIEW OF ABDOMEN TO 
SHOW THE LARGE PLATE-LIKE 
COX.E. 
