The Cicada: the Eggs 



calm temerity, its brazen audacity in the im- 

 mediate presence of the colossus who could 

 crush it by simply stepping on it. I have seen 

 as many as three exploiting the unhappy 

 mother at the same time. They keep close 

 behind each other, either working their 

 probes or awaiting the propitious moment. 



The Cicada has just stocked a cell and is 

 climbing a little higher to bore the next. 

 One of the brigands runs to the abandoned 

 spot; and here, almost under the claws of 

 the giantess, without the least fear, as though 

 she were at home and accomplishing a meri- 

 torious act, she unsheathes her probe and In- 

 serts it into the column of eggs, not through 

 the hole already made, which bristles with 

 broken fibres, but through some lateral 

 crevice. The tool works slowly, because of 

 the resistance of the wood, which is almost 

 Intact. The Cicada has time to stock the next 

 floor above. 



As soon as she has finished, a Gnat stand- 

 ing immediately behind her, waiting to per- 

 form her task, takes her place and comes and 

 Introduces her own exterminating germ. By 

 the time that the mother has exhausted her 

 ovaries and flies avv^ay, most of her cells have, 

 in this fashion, received the alien egg which 



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