Curculionidæ—Weevils.
At Rio Janeiro, the brilliant Diamond-beetle, Eutimis nobilis, is in great request for brooches for gentlemen, and ten piasters are often paid for a single specimen. In this city many owners send their slaves out to catch insects, so that now the rarest and most brilliant species are to be had at a comparatively trifling sum. Each of these slaves, when he has attained to some adroitness in this operation, may, on a fine day, catch in the vicinity of the city as many as five or six hundred beetles. So this trade is considered there very lucrative, since six milresis (four rix dollars, or about fourteen shillings) are paid for the hundred. For these splendid insects there is a general demand; and their wing-cases are now sought for the purpose of adorning the ladies of Europe—a fashion, it is said, which threatens the entire extinction of this beautiful tribe.[210]
Messrs. Kidder and Fletcher tell us that in Brazil “a commerce is carried on in artificial flowers made from beetles’ wings, fish-scales, sea-shells, and feathers, which attract the attention of every visitor. These are made,” they continue, “by the mulheres (women) of almost every class, and thus they obtain not only pin-money, but some amass wealth in the traffic.”[211] Among the beetles referred to by these gentlemen may be placed no doubt the Eutimis nobilis.
Among the largest of the species of this family is the Palm-weevil, Calandra palmarum, which is of an uniform black color, and measures more than two inches in
length. Its larva, called the Grou-grou,[212] or Cabbage-tree worm, which is very large, white, of an oval shape, resides in the tenderest part of the smaller palm-trees, and is considered, fried or broiled, as one of the greatest dainties in the West Indies. “The tree,” says Madame Merian, “grows to the height of a man, and is cut off when it begins to be tender, is cooked like a cauliflower, and tastes better than an artichoke. In the middle of these trees live innumerable quantities of worms, which at first are as small as a maggot in a nut, but afterward grow to a very large size, and feed on the marrow of the tree. These worms are laid on the coals to roast, and are considered as a highly agreeable food.”[213] Capt. Stedman tells us these larvæ are a delicious treat to many people, and that they are regularly sold at Paramaribo. He mentions, too, the manner of dressing them, which is by frying them in a pan with a very little butter and salt, or spitting them on a wooden skewer; and, that thus prepared, in taste they partake of all the spices of India—mace, cinnamon, cloves, nutmegs, etc.[214] This gentleman also says he once found concealed near the trunk of an old tree a “case-bottle filled with excellent butter,” which the rangers told him the natives made by melting and clarifying the fat of this larva.[215] Dr. Winterbottom states this grub is served up at all the luxurious tables of West Indian epicures, particularly of the French, as the greatest dainty of the western world.[216]
Dobrizhoffer doubtless refers to the larva of the Calandra palmarum, when he says: “The Spaniards of Santiago in Tucuman, when they go seeking honey in the woods, cleave certain palm-trees upon their way, and on their return find large grubs in the wounded trees, which they fry as a delicious food.”[217] The same is said of the Guaraunos of the Orinoco—“that they find these grubs in great numbers in the palms, which they cut down for the sake of their juice. After all has been drawn out that will flow, these grubs
breed in the incisions, and the trunk produces, as it were, a second crop.”[218]
The Creoles of the Island of Barbados, says Schomburgk, consider the Grou-grou worm a great delicacy when roasted, and say it resembles in taste the marrow of beef-bones.[219]
Antonio de Ulloa, in his Noticias Americanas, says this grub has the singular property of producing milk in women.[220] The Argentina, the historic poem of Brazil, adds an assertion which is more certainly fabulous, viz., that they first become butterflies, and then mice.[221]
They have a similar dainty in Java in the larva of some large beetle, which the natives call Moutouke.—“A thick, white maggot which lives in wood, and so eats it away, that the backs of chairs, and feet of drawers, although apparently sound, are frequently rotten within, and fall into dust when it is least expected. This creature may sometimes be heard at work. It is as big as a silk-worm, and very white, … a mere lump of fat. Thirty are roasted together threaded on a little stick, and are delicate eating.”[222]
Ælian speaks of an Indian king, who, for a dessert, instead of fruit set before his Grecian guests a roasted worm taken from a plant, probably the larva of the Calandra palmarum, a native of Persia and Mesopotamia as well as of the West Indies, which he says the Indians esteemed very delicious—a character that was confirmed by some of the Greeks who tasted it.[223]
The trunk of the grass-tree, or black-boy, Xanthorea arborea, when beginning to decay, furnishes large quantities of marrow-like grubs, which are considered a delicacy by the aborigines of Western Australia. They have a fragrant, aromatic flavor, and form a favorite food among the natives, either raw or roasted. They call them Bardi. They are also found in the wattle-tree, or mimosa. The presence of these grubs in the Xanthorea is thus ascertained: if the top of one of these trees is observed to be dead, and it contain
any bardi, a few sharp kicks given to it with the foot will cause it to crack and shake, when it is pushed over and the grubs taken out, by breaking the tree to pieces with a hammer. The bardi of the Xanthorea are small, and found together in great numbers; those of the wattle are cream-colored, as long and thick as a man’s finger, and are found singly.[224]
Dr. Livingstone states that in the valley of Quango, S. Africa, the natives dig large white larvæ out of the damp soil adjacent to their streams, and use them as a relish to their vegetable diet.[225]
In the latter part of the eighteenth century, there was published at Florence, by Prof. Gergi, the history of a remarkable insect which he names Curculio anti-odontalgicus. This insect, as he assures us, not only in the name he has given it, but also in an account of the many cures effected by it, is endowed with the singular property of curing the toothache. He tells us, that if fourteen or fifteen of the larvæ be rubbed between the thumb and fore-finger, till the fluid is absorbed, and if a carious aching tooth be but touched with the thumb or finger thus prepared, the pain will be removed; a finger thus prepared, he says in conclusion, will, unless it be used for tooth-touching, retain its virtue for a year! This remarkable insect is only found on a nondescript plant, the Carduus spinosis-simus.[226]
It is said, also by Prof. Gergi, that the Tuscan peasants have long been acquainted with several insects which furnish a charm for the toothache, as the Curculio jæcac, C. Bacchus, and Carabus chrysocephalus.
The curious facts contained in the following quotation, from Chambers’ Book of Days, were among the first that led me to attempt the present compilation. The scientific name of the insect here mentioned is, in the opinion of Prof. Gill and other scientists, a misprint for Rhynchitus auratus, and, following this decision, I have here placed it under the Curculionidæ.—“A lawsuit between the inhabitants of the Commune of St. Julien and a coleopterous insect, now known to naturalists as the Eynchitus aureus,
lasted for more than forty-two years. At length the inhabitants proposed to compromise the matter by giving up, in perpetuity, to the insects, a fertile part of the district for their sole use and benefit. Of course the advocate of the animals demurred to the proposition, but the court, overruling the demurrer, appointed assessors to survey the land, and, it proving to be well wooded and watered, and every way suitable for the insects, ordered the conveyance to be engrossed in due form and executed. The unfortunate people then thought they had got rid of a trouble imposed upon them by their litigious fathers and grandfathers; but they were sadly mistaken. It was discovered that there had formerly been a mine or quarry of an ochreous earth, used as a pigment, in the land conveyed to the insects, and though the quarry had long since been worked out and exhausted, some one possessed an ancient right of way to it, which if exercised would be greatly to the annoyance of the new proprietors. Consequently the contract was vitiated, and the whole process commenced de novo. How or when it ended, the mutilation of the recording documents prevents us from knowing; but it is certain that the proceedings commenced in the year 1445, and that they had not concluded in 1487. So what with the insects, the lawyers, and the church, the poor inhabitants must have been pretty well fleeced. During the whole period of a process, religious processions and other expensive ceremonies that had to be well paid for, were strictly enjoined. Besides, no district could commence a process of this kind unless all its arrears of tithes were paid up; and this circumstance gave rise to the well-known French legal maxim—‘The first step toward getting rid of locusts is the payment of tithes?’ an adage that in all probability was susceptible of more meanings than one.”[227]