Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1891 — Living Upon Locusts. [ARTICLE]

Living Upon Locusts.

A correspondent, writing upon the locust plague in North Africa, says: “In reference to the diet of St. John the Baptist, who lived on locusts and wild honey in the wilderness, there are Sunday-school teachers who cannot believe that dny one weuhf voltffitarily live on such food, and, therefore, say that the‘locust bean,’the fruit of the crab tree, is meant by the writers of the New Testament. I can only reply that the locust cricket, the acrydum pelerinum, order orthoptera, variety Sanatoria—the flying sauterelle of Africa—is sold at a halfpenny per pound in the market place of Biskra (which is the second oasis from the north in the Sahara), and that there it is cooked by boiling with salt and water, as shrimps are boiled here. I myself have little doubt that it is more nutritious than the latter, because in March, when the insect is gathered and dried, it is aa full of albumen as an egg.”