* Kirby and Spence tell us that spiders are eaten by Bushmen and the inhabitants of New Caledonia ; and Reaumur relates that a young lady cracked and ate every spider she came across. Anna Maria Schurman ate them like nuts. Lalande, the astronomer, was equally fond of them ; and a German, immortalised by Rosel, used to spread them on his bread like butter.

Nevertheless, our forefathers were certainly less squeamish than we are; they eat the queerest conglomerations, and seasoned their dishes with ambergris and other strange sauces, nor has the taste for odd combinations quite died out from among us, as witness the Scotch haggis and the Cornish pasties, for which a writer in the Western Antiquary, after quoting the Cornish saying that 'The devil will not venture into Cornwall for fear of being put in a pie,' gives the following recipes. 'The composition of the Squab-pie, deemed luxurious beyond all others, has been given by an unknown writer in verse, as follows: -

"Of wheaten walls erect your paste ; Let the round mass expand its breast, Next slice your apples cull'd so fresh: Let the fat sheep supply its flesh: Then add an onion's stinging juice - A sprinkling - be not too profuse. Well mix't these nice ingredients, sure, Might gratify an epicure !"

'The Herby-pie is another peculiar dish, composed of nettles, pepper-cress, parsley, mustard, and spinach, together with thin slices of pork ! Leeks and pilchards form a third sort, and a fourth is filled with goose feet, gizzard, and blood, with raisins, sugar, and apples; a fifth of leeks and bacon, cooled, before eaten, by Cornish cream; a sixth of mackerel, parsley, and cream. All these, how piquant to the palate of Cornish people especially.'

The same writer gives the following impromptu. ' In a season of scarcity, the attorneys at Quarter Sessions resolved to abstain from eating pasties, and the following epigram was extemporaneously delivered on the occasion: -

'* If the proverb be true that the fame of our pies Prevents us from falling to Satan a prey, It is clear that his friends the attorneys are wise In moving such obstacles out of the way."'

The Spanish olla podrida seems nearly related to these Cornish pasties. Carli, whose travels are given in Pinker-ton's collection, speaks thus of this famous dish: -

'Being come to Cordova, I went to our monastery, where I was forced to be satisfied with the Spanish dish they call Olla Podrida, signifying rotten pot; which name is not improper, for it is an extravagant medley of several things, as onions, garlic, pumkin, cucumber, white beets, a bit of pork, and two of mutton, which, being boiled with the rest, are almost lost. The fathers asked me whether I liked it. I told them it was very fit to kill me, being as I was almost sick, and so weak that I had need of some better restorative than that Podrida, to which I was not used. They put so much saffron in it that, had I not been yellow enough already with my distemper, that alone might have been enough to dye my skin of that colour. It is a great dainty for Spaniards, but a scurvy mess for those that are not used to it.'

All these things are, however, as nothing to some of the dainties enjoyed by the old Romans, who not only feasted upon snails, and the maggots found in old timber, but thought

'A lamb's fat paunch was a delicious treat,' and revelled upon water rats and stewed sow's teats, which Martial says were prepared by a certain cook with so much art as to appear still full of milk, and upon sucking puppies, which Pliny declared were worthy of being served at a supper for the gods.

Then there were dormouse sausages, of which a quaint writer remarks: - 'Petronius delivers us an odd receipt for dressing'em and serving 'em up with Poppies and Honey, which must be a very Soporiferous Dainty, and as good as Owl Pye to such as want a Nap after Dinner.' *

After such an account of the dainties indulged in by the highly civilised masters of the world, we need not feel any disgust at the taste of the Chinese and Red Indians for dog's flesh, or of the poor Australian savages, who regale themselves upon the larvae of beetles found in decaying timber, that from the acacia tree being, says Lumholtz, of excellent flavour, in size the thickness of a finger, and glittering white, the taste resembling nuts. The natives roast these larvae, and also the beetles and wood-lice, but will sometimes eat the larvae alive.+ but others content themselves with the non-poisonous, of which the python, being often twenty feet long, makes a splendid meal. The mode of cooking this dainty we have given elsewhere. Lumholtz says of snakes that the meat is white, but dry and almost tasteless, but that the liver is excellent, resembling ptarmigan in flavour.

It would seem that nothing in the way of food comes amiss to savages; but they do not, as a rule, eat their meat raw. The iguana and its eggs are considered delicacies by the Australians, and so are snakes, which they will hunt fearlessly. Some tribes eat even the poisonous kinds,

* 'The Art of Cookery,' by the author of 'A Journey to London.'

+ The aurelias of the silk-worm, as well as the white earth-grub and the larva of the sphynx-moth, are esteemed delicacies in China.

The natives first eat the fat, which is considered the best part, then the heart, liver, and lungs, and finally the body is divided, after which the backbone is crushed between stones and eaten, every morsel being consumed, and every drop of grease licked up, which reminds one of many European and Asiatic folk-lore stories, in which serpents are cooked and eaten for the purpose of acquiring the language of animals, which in many cases is imparted accidentally to the cook, in the act of sucking a finger which has been burnt by touching the roasted snake, or dipped in the broth in which it has been boiled.

Most savages revel in grease, which they use both externally and internally. We can understand this taste in cold regions, so that the fondness of the Eskimo for whale's blubber and train oil seems justified by the necessity for nitrogenous food; but it seems strange that dwellers in hot climates should also relish oily compounds. Yet, as we have seen, the Australians revel in the fat of snakes, and imagine that when a man is ill, it is because some enemy has stolen his kidney fat; and of the Bushmen in South Africa we are told: - 'Occasionally we had an opportunity of presenting our Bushmen friends with an ample supply of grease, and then would follow a scene. The elder personages first helped themselves, smearing their bodies to their heart's content; the children were next treated, until all had changed their rough, weather-beaten exteriors for a glorious shining appearance. Often not contented with this external embalming, they would drink cups of melted fat, and when asked for a reason, the reply was, "Oh, sir, it is so very comfortable (or nice) to smear both in and outside,"'* The Bushmen also enjoy locusts greatly, and the writer quoted above gives the following as the method of preparing them: - 'Fire being applied to the brushwood, the legs and wings of the locusts were consumed, the bodies dropped in heaps to the ground, and were collected next morning, and having been exposed to dry in the sun on skins, when sufficiently desiccated they were pounded to powder, to be cooked with a little fat, milk, or water. This paste formed a material part of the food of this poor race of human beings.'

In Soyer's 'History of Food' we are given the menu of a Roman supper which is worth transcribing: 'First course - Sea hedgehogs, raw oysters, all sorts of shell fish and asparagus. Second course - A fatted pullet, a fresh dish of oysters and other shell fish, different kinds of dates, univalve shell fish, as whelks, conchs, etc., more oysters of different kinds, sea nettles, beccaficos, chines of roebuck and wild boar, fowls covered with a perfumed paste, a second dish of shell fish and purples (a very costly crustacean). Third course - A wild boar's head, fish, a second set of hors d'oeuvres, chicks, potted river-fish, leverets, roast fowls, and cakes from the marshes of Ancona.'

Here we see several curious combinations, many of the favourite dishes of modern times mixed with others which would now be relished only by Chinese, such as sea hedgehogs (which, however, are still eaten in Italy), sea nettles, whelks, conchs, and fowls covered with perfumed paste, reminding one of the ambergris and rose water so much used in the last century. After all, we are constrained to see that the tastes of civilised man do not vary much from those of the savage, and that the unappreciated trifles of to-day were highly esteemed by those who, in former ages, were regarded as the most fastidious of epicures.

* 'Memoir of Petrus Borchardus Borcherds, Esq.'

The feast of Tetuan, described by Hall Caine in the 'Scapegoat,' deserves to be recorded here as showing the strange mixtures still eaten, and the ceremonies observed in Mohammedan countries. First, steaming dishes of meat, in which each plunged his fingers, then a dish of dates, followed by fish in garlic; keskoos covered with powdered sugar and cinnamon; meat on skewers; browned fowls and fowls with olives; flake pastry and sponge fritters; and, in conclusion, three cups of green tea as thick and sweet as syrup. After which a washing of hands, and fumigating of garments with scented wood burnt in a brass censer.