The Life of the Grasshopper 



her row of pricks suggests the course of the 

 gnomon's shadow on a cylindrical sundial. 



Very often, while the Cicada is absorbed 

 in her work of motherhood, an infinitesimal 

 Gnat, herself the bearer of a boring-tool, 

 labours to exterminate the eggs as fast as 

 they are placed. Reaumur knew her. In 

 nearly every bit of stick that he examined he 

 found her grub, which caused him to make 

 a mistake at the beginning of his researches. 

 But he did not see, he could not see the im- 

 pudent ravager at work. It is a Chalcidid 

 some four to five millimetres 1 in length, all 

 black, with knotty antennae, thickening a little 

 towards their tips. The unsheathed boring- 

 tool is planted in the under part of the ab- 

 domen, near the middle, and sticks out at 

 right angles to the body, as in the case of 

 the Leucospes, 2 the scourge of certain mem- 

 bers of the Bee-tribe. Having neglected to 

 capture the insect, I do not know what name 

 the nomenclators have bestowed upon it, if 

 indeed the dwarf that exterminates Cicadas 

 has been catalogued at all. 



What I do know something about is its 



1 .156 to .195 inch. — Translator's Note. 



3 Cf. The Mason-bees, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by 

 Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xi. — Translator's 

 Note. 



92 



