
































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 twe 
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 


































Mil ei } themselves in the ground, 
Fig. 80.—Female Cicada laying her eggs in the Where they devour the roots 
groove she has bored in the branch of a tree. of the tree. They then become 
pups, 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 pup (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. Very 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 


