THE CICADA 



Not one appeared in the least disturbed. There was 

 no change whatever in the quality or the quantity of 

 the sound. The second gun had no more effect than the 

 first. 



I think, after this experiment, we must admit that the 

 Cicada is hard of hearing, and like a very deaf man, is 

 quite unconscious that he is making a noise. 



IV 



THE cicada's eggs 



The Common Cicada likes to lay her eggs on sm'all 

 dry branches. She chooses, as far as possible, tiny 

 stalks, which may be of any size between that of a straw 

 and a lead-pencil. The sprig is never lying on the 

 ground, is usually nearly upright in position, and is al- 

 most always dead. 



Having found a twig to suit her, she makes a row of 

 pricks with the sharp instrument on her chest — such 

 pricks as might be made with a pin if it were driven 

 downwards on a slant, so as to tear the fibres and force 

 them slightly upwards. If she is undisturbed she will 

 make thirty or forty of these pricks on the same twig. 



In the tiny cells formed by these pricks she lays her 

 eggs. The cells are narrow passages, each one slanting 

 down towards the one below it. I generally find about 



[35] 



