The Food of Insects Viewed From the Biological and Human Standpoint

Our present-day views concerning human food and nutrition are in such a state of active revolutiony that i t may seem futile to discuss the food of insects on the basis of the fragmentary knowledge we ' possess concerning these small animals. I have avoided the term nutrition, however, since food relates to actual materials and does not necessarily introduce chemical and physiological connotations. It isy therefore? clear that "entomological chop suey" might more adequately? if less elegantly? express the content of my subject matter? provided? of course? that we first geparate and accurately identify all the disguised components of this delicacy. This separation, and identification of insect foodstuffs has, as a matter of fact? been rather thoroughly done by entomologists and affords the basis for an understanding of a t least some of the principles that underlie the trophic behavior of insects. That these peculiarities have determined to a great extent the evolution and differentiation of insects is very clear, and as I hope to indicate later we must also attribute to them a very important role among the many factors that have directed the course of organic evolution since the time when insects became a dominant figure in the living world. The most striking feature of the diet of insects is the high degree of specificity which exists in the selection of