176 AN ENTREE OF CICADAS. 
any apparent fear, precipitated themselves reck- 
lessly to the ground, where, without loss of time, 
they commenced digging. Their forelegs, shaped 
somewhat after the fashion of a mole’s, enable 
them to turn up the ground with great expedi- 
tion, ten to twelve seconds being long enough for 
one to get entirely out of sight. How long they 
remain in the larve condition I am unable to say. 
An Athenian banquet, without an entrée of 
cicadas, was deemed as great a failure as would 
be, in these days, a Greenwich feast without 
whitebait. The larvae and pup were esteemed 
the greater dainties, but a female full of eggs, 
artistically browned, and served up hot and juicy, 
was a bonne-bouche the Greek epicure well knew 
how to estimate. Even Aristotle thought the 
dish a luscious one, ‘ quo tempore gusta suavissima 
sunt,’ and at the present time cicade are regularly 
sold in the markets of South America. The legs 
and wings are stripped off, and the body of the 
insect slowly dried inthesun. When sufficiently 
dry, it is powdered, and made into a kind of 
cake, and in that form sold and eaten. 
