I08 THE IX SECT WORLD. 



The ant is carnivorous, and although it likes honey, it has nothing to 

 do with grains of wheat, nor with any other grain, of which, according 

 to the fabulist, it had laid up a stock. On the other hand, the Cicada, 

 which he blames for having 



** Pas un seul petit morceau 

 De mouche ou de vermisseau," 



never dreamt of such victuals, for it lives entirely on the sap of larg( 

 vegetables. The fables of the poet, who is called in France, on( 

 never knows why, " Le bon La Fontaine," teem with errors of the sam( 

 kind as those we have just pointed out. The habits of animals an 

 nearly always represented as exactly the contrary to what they realb 

 are. To initiate himself into the mysteries of the habits of animals 

 La Fontaine certainly had neither the works of Buffon nor tb 

 memoirs of Reaumur, which had not then been written ; but had h' 

 not the book of Nature ? . 



But it is time to mention the principal species of the Cicada. WV 

 will describe two : that of the Ash, which lives on those trees in th 

 south of France ; and that of the INIanna Ash, which is very commo 

 in the south-east of France. It is particularly plentiful in the foresl 

 of pines which abound between Bayonne and Bordeaux. It is o 

 these two species of Cicada that Re'aumur made the beautifi 

 observations of which we gave a summary above. 



The Cicada plebeia or Tetfigonia fraxmi, very common in Pn 

 vence, is found, though rarely, in the forest of Fontainebleai 

 occasionally in La Brie. It is of a grey yellow below, black abovf 

 the head and thorax are marked or striped with black. 



M. Solier, in a Memoir inserted in the " Annales de la Socie'te Ent 

 mologique de France," says that its song, very loud and very piercin 

 seems to consist of one single note, repeated with rapidity, which i 

 sensibly grows weaker after a certain time, and terminates in a kii 

 of whistle, which can be partly imitated by pronouncing the two co 

 sonants st, and which resembles the noise of the air coming out of 

 little opening in a compressed bladder. When the Cicada sings, 

 moves its abdomen violently, in such a manner as alternately 

 move it away from, and to bring it near to, the little covers of t 

 sonorous cavities ; to this movement is added a slight trembling 

 the mesothorax. 



The same entomologist relates a very interesting observati 

 made on this species of Cicada by his friend, M. Boyer, a chemist 

 Aix, and which he himself verified. The Cicadas, in general, ; 

 very timid, and fly away at the least noise. However, v/hen 



