The Cicada: the Eggs 



clinging to the roots; they have not altered 

 in appearance or in size. I find them now 

 just as I saw them at the beginning of the 

 experiment, only a little less active. Does 

 not this absence of growth during the in- 

 terval of November, the mildest month of 

 winter, seem to show that no nourishment is 

 taken throughout the cold season? 



The young Sitaris-beetles, 1 those other 

 animated atoms, as soon as they issue from 

 the egg at the entrance to the Anthophora's 2 

 galleries, remain in motionless heaps and 

 spend the winter in complete abstinence. 

 The little Cicadas would appear to behave 

 in much the same manner. Once buried in 

 depths where there is no fear of frosts, they 

 sleep, solitary, in their winter-quarters and 

 await the return of spring before broaching 

 some root near by and taking their first re- 

 freshment. 



I have tried, but without success, to con- 

 firm by actual observation the inferences to 

 be drawn from the above results. In the 

 spring, in April, for the third time I unpot 

 my plantation. I break up the clod and 



1 Cf. The Life of the Fly: chap, iv.— Translator's Note. 



2 Cf. Bramble-bees and Others, by J. Henri Fabre, 

 translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: passim. — 

 Translator's Note. 



109 



