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Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1361, 18 February 1865, Page 4

Epicurean Dishes.—Ants are eaten in many countries. In Brazil, the largest species are prepared with a sauce of resin. In Africa, they stew them with butter. In the East Indies they are caught in pits, carefully roasted, like coffee, and eaten by mouthfuls afterwards. Mr. Smeathman says:—" I have eaten them several times dressed in this way, and I think them delicate, nourishing, and wholesome. They are something sweeter, though not so fat and clogging as the caterpillar and maggot of the palm-tree, or the snout-beetle, which is served up at the luxurious tables of the West Indian epicures, particularly the French, as the greatest luxury of the Western world." A curry of ant 6' eggs is a very costly luxury in Siam; and in Mexico the people have, from time immemorial, eaten the eggs of water insects which prevail in the'lagoons of that city. The Cingalese (ungrateful wretches!) eat the bees, after robbing them of their honey. The African Bushmen eat all the caterpillars they can find. A Bushman would be a valuable acquisition for a market gardener's cabbage-field. The Australians are notorious as maggot-eaters; and the Chinese, who waste nothing, eat the chrysalis of the Bilkworm after they have wound the silk from Its cocoon. It is said that the North American Indians used to eat locusts. The African Bushmen and the savages of New Caledonia are fond of spiders roasted. This singular taste is not unknown even in Europe. Reaumur tells of young lady who, when walking her garden, used to eat all the spiders she could natch. Lalande, the. French astronomer, was equally fond of *theni; and a German, immortalized by Dosel, used to spread bread instead of butter. — International Magazine. J