The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-06-22

Sucn as IS to pe IOund Tn Bernuud under the name of tornela, or more popuIarly locust and will honey" On the other hand there have been ear nest supporters of the theory that the mama on which the people of Israel fed was an insect excretioh. While the development of agriculture and commercial facilities have rendered the use of insects as food in most cases unnecessary in other times and under other conditions men have not despised the insect as a means of sub sistence. And even today various in sects are eaten and relished by men, although their relative importance as food is now of course almost negli- gible. In support of the original John the Baptist tradition is the fact that | the locust has long been and is still | eaten in Arabia, Persia and Africa. | The Moors fry the insect in butter, | making a favorite and staple dish. Locusts are said to be used much in Indian curries, even in Calcutta. Many of our own North American Indians consumed large quantities of Rocky Mountain locusts. When these In dians were great in number, the Rocky Mountain locust was practically harm less. Now that the Indians are re- duced to a mere vestige of their for
 mer numbers, and are conforming
 largely to our food habits, however, the locust has become a serious pest, for it eats every green leaf it can
 reach. A mixture of pulverized ants
 grasshoppers and locusts, dried in the
 sun, was a delicacy with certain tribe, while others preferred grass hoppers and crickets combined, with
 roasted ants as a variant. Grasshop-
 pers were used in soup or were boiled l into a tasty paste. It may come as.
 a shock to some admirers of the an cient Greeks to learn that grasshop-
 pers were highly prized as de1icacies by Greek epicures of the time of Per | icles. Among other insects which | have been and are considered as of
 gastronomic value are caterpi1lars, a North American Indian delicacy; moths, favorite in some parts of Af-
 rica; the pupae of the silk worm in China and the pupae of a South In
 dian silk moth. Ants, alive or roast i ed, are appreciated in Burmah, as by
 the Indians of North and South Amer ica, and of the East Indies, while from reliable sources we receive assurance | that the lumbermen of Maine enjoy an occasional meal of large black wood ants. In the lake region of Cen i tral Africa the natives, when short of tobacco, are fond of chewing sweet
 earth''-the clay of the local ant hills. i The beetle is eaten in the Nile Valley,
 in Turkey, Lombardy, Moldavia, Ja-
 va, Peru and Valachia, and is claim
 ed to be very nutritious and fattening. In Centra America the eggs of three
 aquatic bugs are made into little cakes
 and eaten. A large bug is eaten with
 rice in Assam, and in Nyasoland a paste of mayflies and mosquitoes 1 arouses enthusiasm. The Mexicans
 manufacture a drink as strong as their pulque by infusing a tiger beetle in
 alcohol
 But as interesting as the use of in-
 sects for food is their employment as
 medicines, and they are so honored by
 both homeopathists and allopaths. A
 beetle called the Spanish fly, with
 some of it's allied species, is fairly
 widely used as vesicating or blister
 ing agent, and also forms an ingre-
 dient of many hair washes. The oil
 beetle, when handled, ejects from the
 joints of it's legs a clear yellow oil,
 which has been used with success in
 Germany as a remedy for hydropho-
 bia, and in Sweden as an ointment
 for rheumatism. The gals of the gall lily furnish tannin, which has strong
 astringent properties While formic
 acid is now made artificially, it was formerly obtained from ants, and em- ployed in many ways incidentally. 1n-
 sects have been variously enlisted in
 the treatment of tooth-ache, ear-ache,
 headache and weak sight, to cure
 dropsy, and for kidney and bladder
 diseases, pleurisy, pericarditis, en-
 larged tonsils and other troubles.
 Cochinea1 is recommended by the
 United States Dispensatory for whooping cough and neuralgia afflic
 tions, due to it's anodyne properties. An interesting discussion of the food
 and medicinal values of insects, as
 suggested above, is given by c. A. Ea-
 land in Insects and Man"
 In addition we have many insect
 products of no small value Most fla |
 bee There is also a Chinese bug !, which secretes a kind of grease on
 various trees. This hardens into wax, , and is collected, melted and purified l when it becomes white and glossy in , appearance, and when mixed with oil can be made into candles. The coch- meal, a scale insect living on cacti , in the American tropics, besides hav- , ing medicinal qualities, yields the two dyes called carmine and lake. While ; nowadays most dues are chemically , made, the natural dye of the cochi- 5 neal is employed in coloring soldiers uniforms, as it stands the weather bet ter than commercial dyes. The pu- } pae of Mexican black fly which } swarms in great quantities near Lake Texcoa are used as fertilizer. No en- largement is needed on the work of the
 precious Silk-worm-a native of Chi 5 ma, which is now raised here also. . Commercial shellac is obtained by 7 melting the resinous substance pro- 2 duced by an East Indian scale insect 3 and deposited in a crust on twigs to contain the insect and it's eggs. The . export value of lac from Indian ports = l in one year has risen as high as 33,- = 900, 900 rupees. Lac has also been g used to make dyes, but while the lac S industry is a growing one, the em- ! ployment of lac in making dyes has s probably had it's day. The best lac S is obtained from Bengal and the Cen y tral Provinces of India It is also = used as stiffening for hats, sealing wax as an ingredient of lithosra phic ink