Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

     ‘During the lumbering operations in the Canadian backwoods in the winter,” said a lumberman, “the French workmen-you know the French eat cocks’ combs and snails and skate-season their beans and bacon with ant sauce. Nearly every tree that falls, you know, discovers a great colony of red or brown ants. These, the French woodmen say, have an acidy, agreeable taste. They tone up the food like tomato catchup or pickled walnuts. They dry the ants and eat them with a plentiful sprinkling of salt and pepper, or they steep them in molasses. Strange to say, ant sauce, taken moderately, seems to improve the health. Now and then, though, the Frenchmen take too much of it, when their eyes become bloodshot and they shake all over with palsy, exhibiting the symptoms of a man recovering from drunkenness.”