Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1875-05-06

| some specimens of which, In former
years, have been sold for English cabi-
nets at the rate of ESQ; in Australia,
many worms, bred in decayed wood, are
collected for human food; various mem
bers of the locust family are now, and
have been from time immemorial, en-
ployed as food in various parts of the
world, and, as they live on vegetable
food, it is difficult to understand why a
mess of grasshoppers may not be as pal
atable as dish of shrimps; curry of
ants eggs is deemed luxury in Siam
various kinds of water-bugs are eaten in
Mexico; butterflies in Australia are
more highly esteemed for their flavor
than their beauty; spiders form an arti.
Gle in the list of Bushmen's dainties in
South Africa, and roasted spiders are
spoken of as enjoyed by the people of
New ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, the French
astronomer, having been fond of them
and Humboldt tells US he has seen the
ccntipede eagerly devoured by the chill
dren IN South America.
In Italy cockchafers are candied and
served up with other confectionery, and
in Austria large wood ants are served up
and eaten alive.
The diversity Of tastes prevailing In
ditierents parts of the world in regard to
food would seem to confirm the proverb
that lone mans meat is another mans
poison" In very many instances what
is highly esteemed in one country is abb
horred in another.
Milk as an article Of food Except for
sucking babies) is loathed by the South
Sea Islanders. Goats have been intro
duced into several of the islands, but the
people deride the settlers for using the
milk. On the other hand dogs and rats
are favorite articles of food with them
As for pork, it is on religious grounds
that the Jews and Mohammedans abstain
from it, as the Hindoos do from beef
But the Christians of the East seem to
have nearly an equal aversion to it; and
the like prevailed lately in Scotland.
Maize OF Indian corn has been intro
duced into New Zealand by the mission
aries, and the people cultivate it and
highly esteem it, But their mode of pre-
pairing it for food is, to civilized people,
most disgusting. They steep it in water
till it is putrid, and then make 1t into a
kind of porridge which emits an intoler-
able stencil.
Human flesh has been and still is eaten
in many parts of the world, and that by
the people considerably above the low
est rank of savages, such as those in the
Fejee Islands and an Indian people
called the BATH, who are said to have q
written language. And even in canni-
balism there are great diversities-some
nations eat their enemies and some their
friends.
Herodotus relates that Persian King
asked the Indian soldiers that were in
his service what reward would induce
them to bury the dead bodies of their
friends instead of eating them. They re-
piled by entreating him not to mention
anything SO shocking.
Ga the other hand the New Zealanders
before their conversion, who seemed
to have considered that the proper diet
of mankind is man-were once in the
habit of eating only their enemies.
By some Arctic travellers il has been
asserted that the Esquimaux have beer
known to eat their sledges when pressed
with hunger; but when we remember
that these sledges are made of frozen
salmon with skins sewed over them our
wonder is modified, and in an extremity
piece of one sledge, washed down with
whale oil, might not be such dreadful
tidbit, Ia