PLATE VII.
A F R O G - C A T C H E R .
T ?he lower- fort' of people in China are not delicate in their eating; they
do not fcrupleto feed heartily upon animals which die a natural death, as
is noticed by feveral voyagers:. The poor eat frogs- and rats, dried hams*
o f which latter afe expofed to fale in the ftreets; and the middling fort
think a-yon*^ dog'dor bad food.«-This feems to have been a delicacy of
very-ancient^ date.: The Romans, according to Pliny*, considered fucking
puppies, as an excellent dip».
They have a method of taking frogs in China, during the night, by
meat® .of fire,, which is-carried in a wire,net, as-reprefented in this plate.
* Plin. Nat. Hift. lib. xxix. cap. 14.— “ Catulos la&amtes adeo puros exittimabant ad
“ cibum ut etiam placandis numinibus hoftiarum vice uterentur his.” — It appears likewife
from Athenams* lib. v. page 281. and from Galen* lib. iii. de Alimentis* cap. 2. that the
Greeks ate the fielh 6 f young dogs as a'delicacy.
