The Hunters' Feast: Conversations Around the Camp Fire

by Mayne Reid

Impounding the sage hare is one of the master strokes of their hunter-craft, and forms a source of employment to them for a considerable portion of the year.

Our four trappers, then, remembering the Indian mode of capturing these creatures put it in execution to some advantage, and were soon able to satisfy their hunger. After two or three days spent in this pursuit they had caught more than twenty hares, but the stock ran out, and no more could be found in that neighbourhood.

Of course only a few were required for present use, and the rest were dried over a sage fire until they were in a condition to keep for some days.

Packing them on their backs, the trappers set out, heading for the Snake River. Before they could reach Fort Hall their rabbit meat was exhausted, and they were as badly off as before. The country in which they now found themselves was if possible more of a desert than that they had just quitted. Even rabbits could not dwell in it, or the few that were started could not be caught. The artemisia was not in sufficient plenty to make an inclosure with, and it would have been hopeless to have attempted such a thing; as they might have spent days without trapping a single hare. Now and again they were tantalised by seeing the great sage cock, or, as naturalists call it, “cock of the plains” (Tetrao urophasianus), but they could only hear the loud “burr” of its wings, and watch it sail off to some distant point of the desert plain. This bird is the largest of the grouse kind, though it is neither a bird of handsome plumage, nor yet is it delicate in its flesh. On the contrary, the flesh, from the nature of its food, which is the berry of the wild wormwood, is both unsavoury and bitter. It would not have deterred the appetites of our four trappers, could they have laid their hands upon the bird, but without guns such a thing was out of the question. For several days they sustained themselves on roots and berries. Fortunately it was the season when these are ripe, and they found here and there the prairie turnip (Psoralea esculenta), and in a marsh which they had to cross they obtained a quantity of the celebrated Kamas roots.

All these supplies, however, did not prove sufficient. They had still four or five days’ farther journey, and were beginning to fear they would not get through it, for the country to be passed was a perfect barren waste. At this crisis, however, a new source of subsistence appeared to them, and in sufficient plenty to enable them to continue their journey without fear of want. As if by magic, the plain upon which they were travelling all at once become covered with large crawling insects of a dark brown colour. These were the insects known among the trappers as “prairie crickets,” but from the description given of them by the trappers the hunter-naturalist pronounced them to be “locusts.” They were of that species known in America as the “seventeen years’ locust” (Cicada septemdecem), so called because there is a popular belief that they only appear in great swarms every seventeen years. It is probable, however, that this periodical appearance is an error, and that their coming at longer or shorter intervals depends upon the heat of the climate, and many other circumstances.

They have been known to arrive in a great city, coming not from afar, but out of the ground from between the bricks of the pavement and out of crevices in the walls, suddenly covering the streets with their multitudes. But this species does not destroy vegetation, as is the case with others of the locust tribe. They themselves form the favourite food of many birds, as well as quadrupeds. Hogs eagerly feed upon and destroy vast numbers of them; and even the squirrels devour them with as great a relish as they do nuts. These facts were furnished by the hunter-naturalist, but our trappers had an equally interesting tale to tell.

As soon as they set eyes upon the locusts and saw that they were crawling thickly upon the plain, they felt that they were safe. They knew that these insects were a staple article of food among the same tribes of Indians—who hunt the sage hare. They knew, moreover, their mode of capturing them, and they at once set about making a large collection.

This was done by hollowing out a circular pit in the sandy earth, and then the four separating some distance from each other, drove the crickets towards a common centre—the pit. After some manoeuvring, a large quantity was brought together, and these being pressed upon all sides, crawled up to the edge of the pit, and were precipitated into its bottom. Of course the hole had been made deep enough to prevent them getting out until they were secured by the hunters.

At each drive nearly half a bushel was obtained, and then a fresh pit was made in another part of the plain, and more driven in, until our four trappers had as many as they wanted.

The crickets were next killed, and slightly parched upon hot stones, until they were dry enough to keep and carry. The Indians usually pound them, and mixing them with the seeds of a species of gramma grass, which grows abundantly in that country, form them into a sort of bread, known among the trappers as “cricket-cake.” These seeds, however, our trappers could not procure, so they were compelled to eat the parched crickets “pure and unmixed;” but this, in the condition in which they then were, was found to be no hardship.