The Cicada: leaving the Burrow 



retreat impossible. The miner shores up his 

 galleries with pit-props and cross-beams; the 

 builder of underground railways strengthens 

 his tunnels with a casing of brickwork; the 

 Cicada's larva, which is quite as clever an 

 engineer, cements its shaft so as to keep it 

 open however long it may have to serve. 



If I surprise the creature at the moment 

 when it emerges from the soil to make for 

 a neighbouring branch and there undergo its 

 transformation, I see it at once beat a 

 prudent retreat and, without the slightest 

 difficulty, run down again to the bottom of 

 its gallery, proving that, even when the dwell- 

 ing is on the point of being abandoned for 

 good, it does not become blocked with earth. 



The ascending-shaft is not a piece of work 

 improvised in a hurry, in the insect's im- 

 patience to reach the sunlight; it is a regular 

 manor-house, an abode in which the grub is 

 meant to make a long stay. So the plastered 

 walls tell us. Any such precaution would be 

 superfluous in the case of a mere exit aban- 

 doned as soon as bored. There is not a 

 doubt but that we have here a sort of 

 meteorolog^ical station in which observations 

 are taken of the weather outside. Under- 

 ground, fifteen inches down, or more, the 



29 



