128 THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 
_ -Foop.—It has been said that ‘he was a bold man who first 
put a live oyster into his mouth,” but what shall be said of the 
individual who first put a live spider there? When we study 
the habits of savages we feel little or no surprise that they 
eat all sorts of, what are to us, horrid things. The aborigines 
of New Caledonia collect large numbers of an orb-weaying 
spider, known to naturalists as Araneus edulis, which they 
roast and eat with relish. Disgusting as this may appear, it 
is not nearly so bad as some instances of Huropeans—and 
educated people at that—who have been recorded as regarding 
spiders in the light of delicacies, Réaumer has told us of a 
lady of his acquaintance who, whenever she walked in ‘her 
rounds, never saw a spider that she did not want to eat there 
and then; the famous Anna Maria Schurmann affirmed that 
living spiders tasted like nuts. Then, on the authority of 
Latrielle, we learn that the famous French astronomer of his 
time, Lalande, was particularly fond of eating living spiders. 
The Australian blacks do not appear to have utilised spiders as 
‘food. Savages, however, eat so many things that a white man 
would turn up his nose at, that it is quite possible that, in 
times of great scarcity of food, spiders may have been eaten, 
and the fact not recorded. Humboldt, in Vol. II. of his work, 
“Personal Travels,’ relates the fact that he saw Indian 
children .drag centipedes out of the earth and eat them. 
Various savage races have eaten not only grasshoppers, locusts 
and cicadas, but also caterpillars, beetles, wasps and white ants. 
Indeed, many of these insects are considered valuable from a 
food point of view. Beetle grubs, especially the lignivorous 
forms, are eaten, both raw and roasted, by our blacks in 
different parts of Australia. Roasted on embers they are 
considered to be both delicate and nutty in flavour, varying 
‘in quality according to the tree in which they bore and on 
-which. they feed. Those obtained from the trunks of the 
common wattle are most in favour. Beetles have been eaten 
by. many, races of people. Amongst these insects, the Sacred 
‘Beetle of Ancient Hgypt was the most important. In Arabia 
‘and Turkey, ladies search for a special species of beetle, which 
they fry in butter and eat with the object of enhancing their 
-beauty. Grasshoppers and locusts, both cooked, raw, and 
‘dried, have contributed largely to the food supplies of primitive 
man. Dioderus Siculus mentions a race of Hthiopians who 
“were so fond of eating these insects that they were called 
-Acridophag?, or locust-eaters. The Central Australian blacks 
-call. grasshoppers which they eat mara, but this name is also 
‘applied to the honeycomb of the bee. In tropical and sub- 
“tropical regions of both the old and new worlds, white ants 
-haye been highly esteemed. On one occasion that great 
‘missionary and traveller, David Livingstone, was visited by a 
“Bayeiye Chief, to whom he gave a slice of bread, with preserved 
a 
