108 



THE INSECT WORLD. 



pleasure. It is furnished with three implements. In the middle 



there is a piercer or bodkin, 

 which when run into a branch 

 supports the insect, and two 

 stylets, whose upper edges, 

 having teeth like a saw, rest- 

 ing back to back, on the middle 

 implement, move up and down 

 it. With this admirable in- 

 strument, the female Cicada 

 incises obliquely the bark and 

 wood until she has almost 

 reached the pith (Fig. 80). The 

 male sings while she is at work. 

 When the cell is sufficiently 

 deep and properly prepared, 

 the female lays at the bottom 

 of it from five to eight eggs. 



From these eggs come very 

 small white grubs (Fig. 81), 

 which leave their nest, de- 

 scend by the trunk, and bury 

 themselves in the ground, 

 where they devour the roots 

 of the tree. They then become 

 pupse, and hollowing out the earth with their front legs, which 

 are very much developed, continue to live at the expense 

 of the roots. At the end of spring these pupae (Fig. 82) come 

 out of the earth, hook themselves on to the trunks of trees, 

 and strip themselves one fine evening of their skin, which remains 

 whole and dried. Yery weak at first, these metamorphosed insects 

 drag themselves along with difficulty. But next day, warmed 

 by the first rays of the sun, having had, no doubt, time to reflect 

 on their new social position, and less astonished than they were 

 on the preceding evening, they agitate their wings, they fly, and 

 the males send forth into the air the first notes of their screeching 

 concert. The Cicadas remain on trees, whose sap they suck by 

 means of their sharp-pointed beak. It is difficult enough to 



Fig. 80. Female Cicada laying her eggs in the 

 groove she has bored in the branch of a tree. 



