18 THE CAUSES WHICH PROPAGATE 



of the pine, making" their summer lives one ceaseless son^/^ 

 They are not a bit like the Cicada before me, pure and simple. 

 I must describe it for our northern literati. Well, it carried 

 itself, I think I may say, with somewhat the air of a gigantic 

 bee, but in form it closely resembled the little froth insect of 

 quickset hedges, to which it is near akin. In colour it was black, 

 elegantly lined with blood-red on the body and wing-veins, or 

 if Latin should be preferred. Nigra abdominis incisuris alarumqiie 

 nervis sanguinis. Any way it was a Cicada, sometime known as 

 hceniatodes, whose generic name is undecided. Cicada hcematodes, 

 the Blood Cicada, satisfied Linnasus ; Fabricius baptised it Tetti- 

 gonia ; and lately it has been proposed to surname it Melanvpsalta, 

 and christen it Cicadetta. But this is getting as bad as the 

 poets. 



Having likewise read of the suavity of the Cicadse in France, 

 and of a certain physician at Aix who found, Eurydice-like, 

 they came at a whistle to sit on his walking-stick, thinking no 

 harm, I placed the Cicada on my hand in the sun to see whether 

 he would " sing." But alas for preconceived notions ! the thing 

 took to its wings, and left me in chagrin. Returning to the 

 same spot a few days afterwards, I spied another sounding 

 lustily on a poplar sapling just out of reach, where he was 

 probing ecstatically the tepid sap. I approached and violently 

 shook the tree to dislodge him ; but this was useless ; the crea- 

 ture beat his wings as if it were the rising west wind that rocked 

 him, and screaked the louder. At this juncture a Piedmontese 

 with a peeled fishing-rod passed, whom I invited in la hella 

 lingua to take a " swipe.'' The angler politely complied, but 

 with an acclamation " Securo ! " for the bavard was already 

 crowing with his compeers on the tree-top, Fip ! pij) ! pee . . . ! 



It is part of the economy of the Cicadse that the matron 

 is provided with a sharp ovipositor wherewith she pierces dry 

 twigs, and thrusts her eggs well into the pith to hatch in process 

 of time. On leaving their sylvan nurseries, the young burrow 

 in the ground, where they subsist on the roots of plants. Here 

 they become so plump that they were sought for by the ancients 

 as food, and termed Mother Cicadaj, Tettigometra. Living for 

 about a year thus entombed, they crawl to light, and clambering 

 up the plants and trees, their skin first hardens and then bursts. 



