Gryllidæ—Grasshoppers.
Mr. Hughes, after describing an ash-colored Grasshopper (which may be his ash-colored cricket before mentioned),[302] remarks that the superstitious of the inhabitants of Barbados are very apprehensive of some approaching illness to the family, whenever this insect flies into their houses in the evening or in the night.[303]
Athenæus tells us the ancient Greeks used to eat the common Grasshopper and the Monkey-grasshopper as provocatives of the appetite. Aristophanes says:
How can you, in God’s name, like Grasshoppers,
Catching them with a reed, and Cercopes?[304]
Turpin tells us there is a kind of brown Grasshopper in Siam, which the natives consider a delicate food.[305]
“Fernandus Oniedus declareth furthermore,” says Peter Martyr in his History of the West Indies, “that in a certain region called Zenu, lying fourescore and tenne miles from Darrina Eastwarde, they exercise a strange kinde of marchaundize: For in the houses of the inhabitantes they found great chests and baskets, made of twigges and leaves of certaine trees apt for that purpose, being all ful of Grasshoppers, Grilles, Crabbes, Crefishes, Snails also, and Locustes, which destroie the fields of corne, all well dried and salted. Being demanded why they reserved such a multitude of these beastes: they answered, that they kept them to be sowlde (sold) to the borderors, which dwell further within the lande, and that for the exchange of these pretious birdes, and salted fishes, they received of them certayne straunge thinges, wherein partly they take pleasure, and partly use them for the necessarie affaires.”[306]
In the account of the voyages of J. Huighen Linschoten, it is stated that the inhabitants of Cumana eat “horse-leeches,
bats, Grasshoppers, spiders, bees, and raw, sodden, and roasted lice. They spare no living creature whatsoever, but they eat it.”[307]
“Among the choice delicacies with which the California Digger Indians regale themselves during the summer season,” says the Empire County Argus, “is the Grasshopper roast. Having been an eye-witness to the preparation and discussion of one of their feasts of Grasshoppers, we can describe it truthfully. There are districts in California, as well as portions of the plains between Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, that literally swarm with Grasshoppers, and in such astonishing numbers that a man cannot put his foot to the ground, while walking there, without crushing great numbers. To the Indian they are a delicacy, and are caught and cooked in the following manner: A piece of ground is sought where they most abound, in the center of which an excavation is made, large and deep enough to prevent the insect from hopping out when once in. The entire party of Diggers, old and young, male and female, then surround as much of the adjoining grounds as they can, and each with a green bough in hand, whipping and thrashing on every side, gradually approach the center, driving the insects before them in countless multitudes, till at last all, or nearly all, are secured in the pit. In the mean time smaller excavations are made, answering the purpose of ovens, in which fires are kindled and kept up till the surrounding earth, for a short distance, becomes sufficiently heated, together with a flat stone, large enough to cover the oven. The Grasshoppers are now taken in coarse bags, and, after being thoroughly soaked in salt water for a few moments, are emptied into the oven and closed in. Ten or fifteen minutes suffice to roast them, when they are taken out and eaten without further preparation, and with much apparent relish, or, as is sometimes the case, reduced to powder and made into soup. And having from curiosity tasted, not of the soup, but of the roast, really, if one could divest himself of the idea of eating an insect as we do an oyster or shrimp, without other preparation than simple roasting, they would not be considered very bad eating, even by more refined epicures than the Digger Indians.”[308]
An item dated Tuesday, Aug. 21st, 1742, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, states: “Great damage has been done to the pastures in the country, particularly about Bristol, by swarms of Grasshoppers; the like has happened in Pennsylvania to a surprising degree.”[309]
A common species in Sweden, the Decticus verrucivorus, is employed by the native peasants to bite the warts on their hands; the black fluid which it emits from its mouth being supposed to possess the power of making these excrescences vanish.[310] This black fluid, from whatever Grasshoppers it may be emitted, is called by our boys “tobacco spit,” which it much resembles; and they attribute to it also a wart-curing quality. When they catch one, they hold it between the thumb and fore-finger, and cry out,—
Spit, spit tobacco spit,
And then I’ll let you go.
The exuviæ of a Grasshopper called Semmi or Sebi, Kempfer tells us, are preserved for medicinal uses, and sold publicly in shops both in Japan and China.[311]
Dr. James, quoting Dioscorides, says: “Grasshoppers (Locusta Anglica minor, vulgatissima, Raii Ins. 60.) in a suffumigation relieve under a dysury, especially such as is incident to the female sex. The Locusta Africanus is a very good antidote against the poison of the Scorpion.”[312]
After describing the Grasshopper of Italy, Brookes says: “It is often an amusement among the children of that country to catch this animal; and, by tickling the belly with their finger, it will whistle as long as they chuse to make it.”[313]
In France, Grasshoppers are called Sauterelles, Hoppers; and in Germany, Heupferde, Hay-horses, because they generally feed on grasses, and their head has something of the form of a horse’s head.
If Grasshoppers appear early in the summer in great numbers, they foretell famine and drouth,—a superstition obtaining in Maryland.