ORDER II. BUGS. 



71 



But Anacreon praises them, and in one of his odes com 

 pares them with the gods. William Spence, in his &quot; Intro 

 duction to Entomology,&quot; thus translates the satirical words 

 of the ancient Greek philosopher, Anaxagoras : 



&quot; Happy the Cicadas lives, 

 Since they all have voiceless wives.&quot; 



But a German writer, who was probably an old bachelor, 

 in order to show that females of the human species are per 

 haps too much favored with regard to the organ of speech, 

 says, in a very sarcastic manner : 



&quot; Qiiando conveniunt Marietta, Sybilla, Camilla, 

 Sermonem faciunt et ab hoc, et ab hac, et ab ilia.&quot; 



According to the observations of several species of Ci 

 cadas made by Pontedera, Aldrovand, Keaumure, and many 

 others, the females deposit many hundred eggs in the ten 

 der branches of trees, by slitting the bark with their horny, 

 sharp-pointed ovipositor. Their eggs are white, flat, oval, 

 and about the sixteenth of an inch in length. If the 

 weather is favorable to them, the eggs are hatched in about 

 six weeks, when the young ones leave the tree in the con 

 dition of laryse, each one being pro- Figure 10. 

 vided with a month and six strong 

 feet, resembling the flea. They then 

 retreat into the ground, where they 

 feed on roots, according to the obser 

 vations of Pontedera, for two years, 

 after which time they come out of the 

 ground, climb upon a fence or the trunk 

 of a tree, burst their transparent shell 

 (Fig. 19), and assume their perfect 

 form as four-winged insects. They 

 now mount in the air, and enjoy their Gm *&amp;gt; of cicada. 

 short life, flying from branch to branch and from tree to 



