THE CIGALE 63 



more usual, on which the tiny creatures could make no 

 impression. The larva must wander at hazard, must 

 make a pilgrimage of indefinite duration before finding 

 a favourable place. Very many, no doubt, perish, 

 exhausted by their fruitless search. A voyage of 

 exploration in a country a few inches wide evidently 

 forms part of the curriculum of young Cigales. In my 

 glass prison, so luxuriously furnished, this pilgrimage 

 is useless. Never mind : it must be accomplished 

 according to the consecrated rites. 



At last my wanderers grow less excited. I see them 

 attack the earth with the curved talons of their fore- 

 iimbs, digging their claws into it and making such an 

 excavation as the point of a thick needle would enter. 

 With a magnifying-glass I watch their picks at work. 

 I see their talons raking atom after atom of earth to 

 the surface. In a few minutes there is a little gaping 

 well. The larva climbs downwards and buries itself, 

 henceforth invisible. 



On the morrow I turn out the contents of the vase 

 without breaking the mould, which is held together by 

 the roots of the thyme and the wheat. I find all my 

 larvae at the bottom, arrested by the glass. In twenty- 

 four hours they had sunk themselves through the entire 

 thickness of the earth — a matter of some four inches. 

 But for obstacle at the bottom they would have sunk 

 even further. 



On the way they have probably encountered the 

 rootlets of my little plantation. Did they halt in order 

 to take a little nourishment by implanting their pro- 

 boscis ? This is hardly probable, for a few rootlets 

 were pressed against the bottom of the glass, but none 



