131 THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. [. T. 



about the solstice, they come forth by night, and immedi- 

 ately burst their envelope, and the tettigometra becomes a 

 grasshopper. They immediately become black and hard, 

 acquire their full size, and begin to chirp. In both kinds 

 the males chirp ; the others, which do not chirp, are females. 

 When first produced the males are the sweetest : after the 

 sexual intercourse, the females are sweetest, for they contain 

 white ova. 



5. If a noise is made as they fly along, they emit a fluid 

 like water, which the agriculturists describe as if they emitted 

 both a liquid and solid excrement, and that they feed on dew ; 

 and if any one approaches them with a bent finger, which 

 is gradually straightened, they will remain more quiet than 

 if it is put out straight at once, and will climb up upon the 

 finger ; for, from the dimness of their sight, they climb upon 

 it as if it were a moving leaf. 



CHAPTER XXY. 



1. THOSE insects which are not carnivorous, but live upon 

 the juices of living flesh, as lice, fleas, and bugs, produce 

 nits from sexual intercourse ; from these nits nothing else 

 is formed. Of these insects the fleas originate in very small 

 portions of corrupted matter, for they are always collected 

 together where there is any dry dung. Bugs 1 proceed from the 

 moisture which collects on the bodies of animals: lice from 

 the flesh of other creatures ; for before they appear, they 

 exist in little pimples which do not contain matter : and if 

 these are pricked, the lice 2 escape from them. Some persons 

 have been afflicted with a disease arising from excessive 

 moisture in the body, of which people have died, as they say 

 that Alcmon the poet, and Pherecydes of Syria did. 



2. And in some diseases lice are very common. There is 

 a kind of lice, which they call wild, and are harder than the 

 commoD sort, which are difficult to eradicate from the body. 

 The heads of children are most subject to be infested 

 with lice, and men the least so, for women are more liable 

 f o them than men. Those that have lice in the head are 

 less subject to headache. Many other animals are infested 

 with lice : for both birds have them, and those which are 

 called phasiani, unless they dust themselves, are destroyed by 

 1 Cinex lectularius. 2 Perhaps Acarus Scabiei, Itch insect. 



