Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-13
Pressed Mosquitoes
AS a Breakfast Food

LONDON, January 3, 1877.
1.-TWO distinguished English entomol-
ogists, with several assistants, are
about to undertake the indeXing,
classification and arrangement of the larg-
est collection of beetles in the world-a
work which will occupy no less than fifteen
years.
The British Museum. which already has
the largest collection of about everything
of human interest in the world has pur-
chased from DIR. David Sharp curator OF
the Museum of Zoology at Cambridge Uni
versity, a collection of 10000 beetles. This
enormous collection is to be added to one
still larger, formerly belonging to Alex
ander Fry and for some time in the pos
session of the natural history department
of the British Museum at South Kensing-
ton.
DR.. Sharp has spent many years and
much money in acquiring by personal
search and by purchase these 10000 speci-
mems of beetles from every quarter of the
globe. The price for which he has sold
them to the nation is understood to be In
proportion to the enormity of the collection.
The authorities at the museum say that
the combined collections now in their pos
session are priceless. 1t was explained
that other very large collections are in the
Smithsonian Institution in America, and in
the museums of Paris, Vienna and Berlin,
but there is little doubt that the British
Museum now surpasses them all.
~
The addition of DR.. Sharp's collection is
especially valuable on account of his speci-
mems of the water beetle and cocktail
beetle, two queer specimens, by the way, to
be in juxtapositon Naturally a majority
of the specimens come from the tropical
countries, where all kinds of insects
more abundant. and DR.. Sharp's collection
is especially rich in rare varieties from the
Hawaiian Islands, Central America and
New Zealand. Among the specimens, in
fact, are many unknown to entomologists,
and it will be the duty of the experts at
the museum to give these specimens names
and to establish their relationship to the
known branches of the great beetle family.
The average visitor to- the British Mu-
scum sees what he considers a very large
collection of bugs on one of the upper
floors, but these are only of the more pop
ular varieties and are as nothing in num-
bers compared to those in the basement Of
the building, which. however, only stu
dents of entomology are allowed to inspect.
Here, in endless rows of compartments,
each compartment containing many small
drawers and each small drawer divided
into many small sections, are arranged
hundreds upon hundreds of thousands OF
insects of every description and some which
defy description.
The 100000 or more beetles occupy about
800 drawers, ana the Deetle Is only one
branch of the insect family. Flies which
have ruined the wall paper and tickled
many a bald mans head mosquitoes which
have caused many a sleepless night, moths
which have eaten holes in winter garments.
ants that have made inroads into the pam
try hornets that have left their mark on
naughty boys-here they all are, every
guilty member of the whole insect tribe
mounted in a lfeless and graceless manner
on pin heads and arranged painstak-
ingly as can be done by men devoting their
entire lives to the work.
Among other rather surprising things at
the British Museum, IL is said that bugs
are utilized in many civilized parts OF the
world for food. In Europe the common
wood ant is much used In the manufacture
of vinegar and in the south OF France the
same insect is used by cooks as fiavoring
for pastry. My guide also quoted Living
stones report that mosquitoes swarmed in
such multitudes on the Nyassa lake. In
Africa that natives gathered them in bags
and pressed them into cakes an inch thick
and eight inches in diameter, making a de-
lfcious breakfast food.