Show LOCUSTS FOR BREAKFAST irrof esbor Kilcy of the Agricultural Bureau Trying a Kovcl Diet A gentleman who had an engagement with Professor Riley called at his house the other morning and found the entomologist alone in his dmmg room reading the morning pagers as ho finished a late breakfast Come right in here said the professor J want an unprejudiced opinion about a little matter and to the servant Bring hot n in some ones The visitor despite the fact that he had breakfasted was induced to seat himself at the table just for the experiment and was served with a spoonful of dark brown objects ob-jects like very small fried oysters He eyed them suspiciously a moment having discovered discov-ered beneath the crust of bread crumbs a laminated back something like that of avery a-very small shrimp What do you call it The cicada They ought to have been cooked in What Bugs No no not bugs only the cicada miscalled mis-called the seventeenyearold Dont be afraid of them They are only the quint escence of vegetable juices and everything in nature feeds upon them ravenously Thereupon the host took one of the things bit it in two munched and swallowed it with an appearance of relish The guest shut his eyes and attempted to bolt a whole cicada The object crushed in his mouth and proved to be little else than a delicate shell but its flavor was found to be far from disagreeable All its juices were absorbed in the batter bat-ter said the professor explanatorily either the savant nor his visitor was able to liken the flavor to anything with which they were familiar but they were agreed in the opinion that vulgar prejudice overcome the cicada would be esteemed a rare tidbit rare certainly since it required seventeen years to ripen and that it might take rank with frogs legs birds nests shad roes and white bait I spent an hour last night said the host gathering them and they were very beautiful beauti-ful when fresh I took them just as the pupa began to break They were creamy white and plump and looked good enough to eat raw but I didnt venture I think these should have been stewed instead of friedstewed iu milk I presume they I would be nearly as good as grasshoppers Do you eat grasshoppers I Certainly I once ate nothing else for two days and I found them delicious when properly cooked This is only an experiment experi-ment of course but my eating of grasshoppers grass-hoppers had a practical object in view The insects had eaten nearly everything in a large region of country and many families were on the verge of starvation Having lighted a cigar the entomologist described his experience in attempting to introduce a grasshopper diet in the west He cooked the insects in various ways and found them always palatable and nutritious People invited to jVrtake always evinced an aversion at first but prejudices having been overcome the dish became a favorite with those who essayed it Both the oedepoda migratoria he said and the scridum peregnnuiu have been esteemed es-teemed as food by some nations in all past ages as far back at least as the Ninevan era Indeed some tribes have been classed as acridophigi from the almost exclusive preference pref-erence they give this diet a |