The Cicada: the Eggs 



little burrower under your spade ; but to find 

 it fastened to the roots from whose sap it 

 undoubtedly derives its nourishment is quite 

 another matter. The upheaval occasioned by 

 the spade warns it of its danger. It releases 

 its sucker and retreats to some gallery; and, 

 when discovered, it is no longer drinking. 



If agricultural digging, with its inevitable 

 disturbances, is unable to tell us anything of 

 the grub's underground habits, it does at least 

 inform us how long the larval stage lasts. 

 Some obliging husbandmen, breaking up 

 their land, in March, rather deeper than 

 usual, were so very good as to pick up for 

 me all the larvae, big and small, unearthed 

 by their labour. The harvest amounted to 

 several hundreds. Marked differences in bulk 

 divided the total into three classes : the large 

 ones, with rudiments of wings similar to 

 those possessed by the larvae leaving the 

 ground, the medium-sized and the small. 

 Each of these classes must correspond with 

 a different age. We will add to them the 

 larva? of the last hatching, microscopic crea- 

 tures that necessarily escaped the eyes of my 

 rustic collaborators; and we arrive at four 

 years as the probable duration of the 

 underground life of the Cicadae, 

 in 



