2 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



her chief title to celebrity. The petty malice of the two 

 short lines — 



Vous chantiez ! j'en suis bien aise, 

 Eh bien, dansez maintenant ! 



has done more to immortalise the insect than her skill 

 as a musician. " You sang ! I am very glad to hear 

 it 1 Now you can dance ! " The words lodge in the 

 childish memory, never to be forgotten. To most 

 Englishmen — to most Frenchmen even — the song of 

 the Cigale is unknown, for she dwells in the country 

 of the olive-tree ; but we all know of the treatment she 

 received at the hands of the Ant. On such trifles does 

 Fame depend ! A legend of very dubious value, its 

 moral as bad as its natural history ; a nurse's tale whose 

 only merit is its brevity ; such is the basis of a reputa- 

 tion which will survive the wreck of centuries no less 

 surely than the tale of Puss-in-Boots and of Little Red 

 Riding-Hood. 



The child is the best guardian of tradition, the great 

 conservative. Custom and tradition become indestruc- 

 tible when confided to the archives of his memory. To 

 the child we owe the celebrity of the Cigale, of whose 

 misfortunes he has babbled during his first lessons in 

 recitation. It is he who will preserve for future gene- 

 rations the absurd nonsense of which the body of the 

 fable is constructed ; the Cigale will always be hungry 

 when the cold comes, although there were nevci Cigales 

 «n winter ; she will always beg alms in the shape of a 

 few grains of wheat, a diet absolutely incompatible with 

 her delicate capillary " tongue " ; and in desperation she 

 will hunt for flies and grubs, although she never eats. 

 Whom shall we hold responsible for these strange mis- 



