The Life of the Grasshopper 



mass with a straw. You will extract a little 

 yellow, pot-bellied, dumpy creature, shaped 

 like a Cicada without wings. That's the 

 foam-producer. 



When laid naked on another leaf, she 

 brandishes the pointed tip of her little round 

 paunch. This at once betrays the curious 

 machine which we shall see at work presently. 

 When older and still operating under the 

 cover of its foam, the little thing becomes a 

 nymph, turns green in colour and gives itself 

 stumps of wings fixed scarfwise on its sides. 

 From underneath its blunted head there pro- 

 jects, when it is working, a little gimlet, a 

 beak similar to that of the Cicadae. 



In its adult form the insect is, in fact, a 

 sort of very small-sized Cicada, for which 

 reason the entomologist capable of shaking 

 off the trammels of nonsensical nomencla- 

 ture calls it simply the Foamy Cicadella. 

 For this euphonic name, the diminutive of 

 Cicada, the others have substituted that hor- 

 rible word Aphrophora. Orthodox science 

 says, Aphrophora spumaria, meaning Foamy 

 Foambearer. The ear is none the better 

 for this improvement. Let us content our- 

 selves with Cicadella, which respects the 

 tympanum and does not reduplicate the foam. 



426 



