[542] Baron Humboldt asks (Person. Narr. VI. i. 8. note)—"What are those worms (Loul in Arabic) which Captain Lyon, the fellow traveller of my brave and unfortunate friend Mr. Ritchie, found in the pools of the desert of Fezzan, which served the Arabs for food, and which have the taste of Caviare? Are they not insects' eggs resembling the Aguautle, which I saw sold in the markets of Mexico, and which are collected on the surface of the lakes of Texcuco?" For this latter fact he refers to the Gazeta de Litteratura de Mexico. 1794. iii. No. 26. p. 201. It appears from this note of the illustrious traveller that insects are used as food in their egg as well as their other states.
[543] Herbst and Schönherr call this distinct genus Rhyncophorus; but as this is too near the name of the tribe (Rhyncophora), we have adopted Thunberg's name, altering the termination to distinguish it from Cordyle a genus of Lizards.
[544] Ælian. Hist. l. xiv. c. 13. quoted in Reaum. ii. 343.
[545] Ins. Sur. 48.
[546] Hist. Nat. l. xvii. c. 24.
[547] Wisdom of God, 9th ed. 307. Ray first adopted the opinion here maintained, that the Cossi were the larvæ of some beetle; but afterwards, from observing in the caterpillar of Cossus ligniperda a power of retracting its prolegs within the body, he conjectured that the hexapod larva from Jamaica, (Prionus damicornis?) given him by Sir Hans Sloane, might have the same faculty, and so be the caterpillar of a Bombyx.
[548] Amoreux has collected the different opinions of entomologists on the subject of Pliny's Cossus, which has been supposed the larva of Cordylia Palmarum by Geoffroy; of Lucanus Cervus by Scopoli; and of Prionus damicornis by Drury. The first and last, being neither natives of Italy nor inhabiting the oak, are out of the question. The larvæ of Lucanus Cervus and Prionus coriarius, which are found in the oak as well as in other trees, may each have been eaten under this name, as their difference would not be discernible either to collectors or cooks. Amoreux, 154.
[549] Merian Ins. Sur. 24.
[550] St. Pierre, Voy. 72.
[551] Smeathman, 32.