Social Life in the Insect World

THE CIGALE AND THE EMPTY PUPA-SKIN.

Are you afflicted with any kidney trouble, or are you swollen with dropsy, or have you need of some powerful diuretic? The village pharmacopœia is unanimous in recommending the Cigale as a sovereign remedy. The insects in the adult form are collected in summer. They are strung into necklaces which are dried in the sun and carefully preserved in some cupboard or drawer. A good housewife would consider it imprudent to allow July to pass without threading a few of these insects.

Do you suffer from any nephritic irritation or from stricture? Drink an infusion of Cigales. Nothing, they say, is more effectual. I must take this opportunity of thanking the good soul who once upon a time, so I was afterwards informed, made me drink such a concoction unawares for the cure of some such trouble; but I still remain incredulous. I have been greatly struck by the fact that the ancient physician of Anazarbus used to recommend the same remedy. Dioscorides tells us: Cicadæ, quae inassatae manduntur, vesicae doloribus prosunt. Since the distant days of this patriarch of materia medica the Provençal peasant has retained his faith in the remedy revealed to him by the Greeks, who came from Phocæa with the olive, the fig, and the vine. Only one thing is changed: Dioscorides advises us to eat the Cigales roasted, but now they are boiled, and the decoction is administered as medicine. The explanation which is given of the diuretic properties of the insect is a marvel of ingenuousness. The Cigale, as every one knows who has tried to catch it, throws a jet of liquid excrement in one's face as it flies away. It therefore endows us with its faculties of evacuation. Thus Dioscorides and his contemporaries must have reasoned; so reasons the peasant of Provence to-day.

What would you say, worthy neighbours, if you knew of the virtues of the larva, which is able to mix sufficient mortar with its urine to build a meteorological station and a shaft connecting with the outer world? Your powers should equal those of Rabelais' Gargantua, who, seated upon the towers of Notre Dame, drowned so many thousands of the inquisitive Parisians.

CHAPTER III

The church, the mirrors, and the dampers are commonly regarded as the organs which produce the cry of the Cigale. Of a singer out of breath one says that he has broken his mirrors (a li mirau creba). The same phrase is used of a poet without inspiration. Acoustics give the lie to the popular belief. You may break the mirrors, remove the covers with a snip of the scissors, and tear the yellow anterior membrane, but these mutilations do not silence the song of the Cigale; they merely change its quality and weaken it. The chapels are resonators; they do not produce the sound, but merely reinforce it by the vibration of their anterior and posterior membranes; while the sound is modified by the dampers as they are opened more or less widely.

The actual source of the sound is elsewhere, and is somewhat difficult for a novice to find. On the outer wall of either chapel, at the ridge formed by the junction of back and belly, is a tiny aperture with a horny circumference masked by the overlapping damper. We will call this the window. This opening gives access to a cavity or sound-chamber, deeper than the "chapels," but of much smaller capacity. Immediately behind the attachment of the posterior wings is a slight protuberance, almost egg-shaped, which is distinguishable, on account of its dull black colour, from the neighbouring integuments, which are covered with a silvery down. This protuberance is the outer wall of the sound-chamber.

Let us cut it boldly away. We shall then lay bare the mechanism which produces the sound, the cymbal. This is a small dry, white membrane, oval in shape, convex on the outer side, and crossed along its larger diameter by a bundle of three or four brown nervures, which give it elasticity. Its entire circumference is rigidly fixed. Let us suppose that this convex scale is pulled out of shape from the interior, so that it is slightly flattened and as quickly released; it will immediately regain its original convexity owing to the elasticity of the nervures. From this oscillation a ticking sound will result.

Twenty years ago all Paris was buying a silly toy, called, I think, the cricket or cri-cri. It was a short slip of steel fixed by one end to a metallic base. Pressed out of shape by the thumb and released, it yielded a very distressing, tinkling click. Nothing else was needed to take the popular mind by storm. The "cricket" had its day of glory. Oblivion has executed justice upon it so effectually that I fear I shall not be understood when I recall this celebrated device.

The membranous cymbal and the steel cricket are analogous instruments. Both produce a sound by reason of the rapid deformation and recovery of an elastic substance—in one case a convex membrane; in the other a slip of steel. The "cricket" was bent out of shape by the thumb. How is the convexity of the cymbals altered? Let us return to the "church" and break down the yellow curtain which closes the front of each chapel. Two thick muscular pillars are visible, of a pale orange colour; they join at an angle, forming a V, of which the point lies on the median line of the insect, against the lower face of the thorax. Each of these pillars of flesh terminates suddenly at its upper extremity, as though cut short, and from the truncated portion rises a short, slender tendon, which is attached laterally to the corresponding cymbal.

There is the whole mechanism, no less simple than that of the steel "cricket." The two muscular columns contract and relax, shorten and lengthen. By means of its terminal thread each sounds its cymbal, by depressing it and immediately releasing it, when its own elasticity makes it spring back into shape. These two vibrating scales are the source of the Cigale's cry.

Do you wish to convince yourself of the efficiency of this mechanism? Take a Cigale but newly dead and make it sing. Nothing is simpler. Seize one of these muscular columns with the forceps and pull it in a series of careful jerks. The extinct cri-cri comes to life again; at each jerk there is a clash of the cymbal. The sound is feeble, to be sure, deprived of the amplitude which the living performer is able to give it by means of his resonating chambers; none the less, the fundamental element of the song is produced by this anatomist's trick.

Would you, on the other hand, silence a living Cigale?—that obstinate melomaniac, who, seized in the fingers, deplores his misfortune as loquaciously as ever he sang the joys of freedom in his tree? It is useless to violate his chapels, to break his mirrors; the atrocious mutilation would not quiet him. But introduce a needle by the lateral aperture which we have named the "window" and prick the cymbal at the bottom of the sound-box. A little touch and the perforated cymbal is silent. A similar operation on the other side of the insect and the insect is dumb, though otherwise as vigorous as before and without any perceptible wound. Any one not in the secret would be amazed at the result of my pin-prick, when the destruction of the mirrors and the other dependencies of the "church" do not cause silence. A tiny perforation of no importance to the insect is more effectual than evisceration.

The dampers, which are rigid and solidly built, are motionless. It is the abdomen itself which, by rising and falling, opens or closes the doors of the "church." When the abdomen is lowered the dampers exactly cover the chapels as well as the windows of the sound-boxes. The sound is then muted, muffled, diminished. When the abdomen rises the chapels are open, the windows unobstructed, and the sound acquires its full volume. The rapid oscillations of the abdomen, synchronising with the contractions of the motor muscles of the cymbals, determine the changing volume of the sound, which seems to be caused by rapidly repeated strokes of a fiddlestick.

If the weather is calm and hot, towards mid-day the song of the Cigale is divided into strophes of several seconds' duration, which are separated by brief intervals of silence. The strophe begins suddenly. In a rapid crescendo, the abdomen oscillating with increasing rapidity, it acquires its maximum volume; it remains for a few seconds at the same degree of intensity, then becomes weaker by degrees, and degenerates into a shake, which decreases as the abdomen returns to rest. With the last pulsations of the belly comes silence; the length of the silent interval varies according to the state of the atmosphere. Then, of a sudden, begins a new strophe, a monotonous repetition of the first; and so on indefinitely.

It often happens, especially during the hours of the sultry afternoons, that the insect, intoxicated with sunlight, shortens and even suppresses the intervals of silence. The song is then continuous, but always with an alternation of crescendo and diminuendo. The first notes are heard about seven or eight o'clock in the morning, and the orchestra ceases only when the twilight fails, about eight o'clock at night. The concert lasts a whole round of the clock. But if the sky is grey and the wind chilly the Cigale is silent.

The second species, only half the size of the common Cigale, is known in Provence as the Cacan; the name, being a fairly exact imitation of the sound emitted by the insect. This is the Cigale of the flowering ash, far more alert and far more suspicious than the common species. Its harsh, loud song consists of a series of cries—can! can! can! can!—with no intervals of silence subdividing the poem into stanzas. Thanks to its monotony and its harsh shrillness, it is a most odious sound, especially when the orchestra consists of hundreds of performers, as is often the case in my two plane-trees during the dog-days. It is as though a heap of dry walnuts were being shaken up in a bag until the shells broke. This painful concert, which is a real torment, offers only one compensation: the Cigale of the flowering ash does not begin his song so early as the common Cigale, and does not sing so late in the evening.

Although constructed on the same fundamental principles, the vocal organs exhibit a number of peculiarities which give the song its special character. The sound-box is lacking, which suppresses the entrance to it, or the window. The cymbal is uncovered, and is visible just behind the attachment of the hinder wing. It is, as before, a dry white scale, convex on the outside, and crossed by a bundle of fine reddish-brown nervures.

After the details already given concerning the common Cigale it is hardly needful to tell you how the insupportable Cacan can be reduced to silence. The cymbals are plainly visible on the exterior. Pierce them with the point of a needle, and immediately you have perfect silence. If only there were, in my plane-trees, among the insects which carry gimlets, some friends of silence like myself, who would devote themselves to such a task! But no: a note would be lacking in the majestic symphony of harvest-tide.

We are now familiar with the structure of the musical organ of the Cigale. Now the question arises: What is the object of these musical orgies? The reply seems obvious: they are the call of the males inviting their mates; they constitute a lovers' cantata.

I am going to consider this reply, which is certainly a very natural one. For thirty years the common Cigale and his unmusical friend the Cacan have thrust their society upon me. For two months every summer I have them under my eyes, and their voice in my ears. If I do not listen to them very willingly I observe them with considerable zeal. I see them ranged in rows on the smooth rind of the plane-trees, all with their heads uppermost, the two sexes mingled, and only a few inches apart.

The proboscis thrust into the bark, they drink, motionless. As the sun moves, and with it the shadow, they also move round the branch with slow lateral steps, so as to keep upon that side which is most brilliantly illuminated, most fiercely heated. Whether the proboscis is at work or not the song is never interrupted.

Now are we to take their interminable chant for a passionate love-song? I hesitate. In this gathering the two sexes are side by side. One does not spend months in calling a person who is at one's elbow. Moreover, I have never seen a female rush into the midst of even the most deafening orchestra. Sight is a sufficient prelude to marriage, for their sight is excellent. There is no need for the lover to make an everlasting declaration, for his mistress is his next-door neighbour.

Is the song a means of charming, of touching the hard of heart? I doubt it. I observe no sign of satisfaction in the females; I have never seen them tremble or sway upon their feet, though their lovers have clashed their cymbals with the most deafening vigour.

My neighbours the peasants say that at harvest-time the Cigale sings to them: Sego, sego, sego! (Reap, reap, reap!) to encourage them in their work. Harvesters of ideas and of ears of grain, we follow the same calling; the latter produce food for the stomach, the former food for the mind. Thus I understand their explanation and welcome it as an example of gracious simplicity.

Science asks for a better explanation, but finds in the insect a world which is closed to us. There is no possibility of foreseeing, or even of suggesting the impression produced by this clashing of cymbals upon those who inspire it. The most I can say is that their impassive exterior seems to denote a complete indifference. I do not insist that this is so; the intimate feelings of the insect are an insoluble mystery.

Another reason for doubt is this: all creatures affected by song have acute hearing, and this sense of hearing, a vigilant sentinel, should give warning of danger at the slightest sound. The birds have an exquisite delicacy of hearing. If a leaf stirs among the branches, if two passers-by exchange a word, they are suddenly silent, anxious, and on their guard. But the Cigale is far from sharing in such emotions. It has excellent sight. Its great faceted eyes inform it of all that happens to right and left; its three stemmata, like little ruby telescopes, explore the sky above its head. If it sees us coming it is silent at once, and flies away. But let us get behind the branch on which it is singing; let us manœuvre so as to avoid the five centres of vision, and then let us speak, whistle, clap the hands, beat two stones together. For far less a bird which could not see you would stop its song and fly away terrified. The Cigale imperturbably continues to sing as if nothing had occurred.

Of my experiences of this kind I will mention only one, the most remarkable of many.

I borrowed the municipal artillery; that is, the iron boxes which are charged with gunpowder on the day of the patron saint. The artilleryman was delighted to load them for the benefit of the Cigales, and to fire them off for me before my house. There were two of these boxes stuffed full of powder as though for the most solemn rejoicing. Never was politician making his electoral progress favoured with a bigger charge. To prevent damage to my windows the sashes were all left open. The two engines of detonation were placed at the foot of the plane-trees before my door, no precautions being taken to mask them. The Cigales singing in the branches above could not see what was happening below.

There were six of us, spectators and auditors. We waited for a moment of relative quiet. The number of singers was counted by each of us, as well as the volume and rhythm of the song. We stood ready, our ears attentive to the aerial orchestra. The box exploded with a clap of thunder.

No disturbance ensued above. The number of performers was the same, the rhythm the same, the volume the same. The six witnesses were unanimous: the loud explosion had not modified the song of the Cigales in the least. The second box gave an identical result.

What are we to conclude from this persistence of the orchestra, its lack of surprise or alarm at the firing of a charge? Shall we conclude that the Cigale is deaf? I am not going to venture so far as that; but if any one bolder than myself were to make the assertion I really do not know what reasons I could invoke to disprove it. I should at least be forced to admit that it is very hard of hearing, and that we may well apply to it the homely and familiar phrase: to shout like a deaf man.

When the blue-winged cricket, basking on the pebbles of some country footpath, grows deliciously intoxicated with the heat of the sun and rubs its great posterior thighs against the roughened edge of its wing-covers; when the green tree-frog swells its throat in the foliage of the bushes, distending it to form a resonant cavity when the rain is imminent, is it calling to its absent mate? By no means. The efforts of the former produce a scarcely perceptible stridulation; the palpitating throat of the latter is as ineffectual; and the desired one does not come.

Does the insect really require to emit these resounding effusions, these vociferous avowals, in order to declare its passion? Consult the immense majority whom the conjunction of the sexes leaves silent. In the violin of the grasshopper, the bagpipe of the tree-frog, and the cymbals of the Cacan I see only their peculiar means of expressing the joy of living, the universal joy which every species of animal expresses after its kind.

If you were to tell me that the Cigales play on their noisy instruments careless of the sound produced, and merely for the pleasure of feeling themselves alive, just as we rub our hands in a moment of satisfaction, I should not be particularly shocked. That there is a secondary object in their conceit, in which the silent sex is interested, is very possible and very natural, but it is not as yet proven.[1]

CHAPTER IV

Its chosen twig never lies along the ground; it is always in a more or less vertical position. It is usually growing in its natural position, but is sometimes detached; in the latter case it will by chance have fallen so that it retains its upright position. The insect prefers a long, smooth, regular twig which can receive the whole of its eggs. The best batches of eggs which I have found have been laid upon twigs of the Spartium junceum, which are like straws stuffed with pith, and especially on the upper twigs of the Asphodelus cerasiferus, which rises nearly a yard from the ground before ramifying.

It is essential that the support, no matter what its nature, should be dead and perfectly dry.

The first operation performed by the Cigale consists in making a series of slight lacerations, such as one might make with the point of a pin, which, if plunged obliquely downwards into the twig, would tear the woody fibres and would compress them so as to form a slight protuberance.

If the twig is irregular in shape, or if several Cigales have been working successively at the same point, the distribution of the punctures is confused; the eye wanders, incapable of recognising the order of their succession or the work of the individual. One characteristic is always present, namely, the oblique direction of the woody fragment which is raised by the perforation, showing that the Cigale always works in an upright position and plunges its rostrum downwards in the direction of the twig.

If the twig is regular, smooth, and conveniently long the perforations are almost equidistant and lie very nearly in a straight line. Their number varies; it is small when the mother, disturbed in her operations, has flown away to continue her work elsewhere; but they number thirty or forty, more or less, when they contain the whole of her eggs.

Each one of the perforations is the entrance to an oblique tunnel, which is bored in the medullary sheath of the twig. The aperture is not closed, except by the bunch of woody fibres, which, parted at the moment when the eggs are laid, recover themselves when the double saw of the oviduct is removed. Sometimes, but by no means always, you may see between the fibres a tiny glistening patch like a touch of dried white of egg. This is only an insignificant trace of some albuminous secretion accompanying the egg or facilitating the work of the double saw of the oviduct.

Immediately below the aperture of the perforation is the egg chamber: a short, tunnel-shaped cavity which occupies almost the whole distance between one opening and that lying below it. Sometimes the separating partition is lacking, and the various chambers run into one another, so that the eggs, although introduced by the various apertures, are arranged in an uninterrupted row. This arrangement, however, is not the most usual.

The contents of the chambers vary greatly. I find in each from six to fifteen eggs. The average is ten. The total number of chambers varying from thirty to forty, it follows that the Cigale lays from three to four hundred eggs. Réaumur arrived at the same figures from an examination of the ovaries.

This is truly a fine family, capable by sheer force of numbers of surviving the most serious dangers. I do not see that the adult Cigale is exposed to greater dangers than any other insect: its eye is vigilant, its departure sudden, and its flight rapid; and it inhabits heights at which the prowling brigands of the turf are not to be feared. The sparrow, it is true, will greedily devour it. From time to time he will deliberately and meditatively descend upon the plane-trees from the neighbouring roof and snatch up the singer, who squeaks despairingly. A few blows of the beak and the Cigale is cut into quarters, delicious morsels for the nestlings. But how often does the bird return without his prey! The Cigale, foreseeing his attack, empties its intestine in the eyes of its assailant and flies away.

But the Cigale has a far more terrible enemy than the sparrow. This is the green grasshopper. It is late, and the Cigales are silent. Drowsy with light and heat, they have exhausted themselves in producing their symphonies all day long. Night has come, and with it repose; but a repose frequently troubled. In the thick foliage of the plane-trees there is a sudden sound like a cry of anguish, short and strident. It is the despairing lamentation of the Cigale surprised in the silence by the grasshopper, that ardent hunter of the night, which leaps upon the Cigale, seizes it by the flank, tears it open, and devours the contents of the stomach. After the orgy of music comes night and assassination.

I obtained an insight into this tragedy in the following manner: I was walking up and down before my door at daybreak when something fell from the neighbouring plane-tree uttering shrill squeaks. I ran to see what it was. I found a green grasshopper eviscerating a struggling Cigale. In vain did the latter squeak and gesticulate; the other never loosed its hold, but plunged its head into the entrails of the victim and removed them by little mouthfuls.

The ovipositor is then withdrawn with methodical deliberation, in order that it may not be strained or bent. The egg-chamber closes of its own accord as the woody fibres which have been displaced return to their position, and the Cigale climbs a little higher, moving upwards in a straight line, by about the length of its ovipositor. It then makes another puncture and a fresh chamber for another ten or twelve eggs. In this way it scales the twig from bottom to top.

These facts being understood, we are able to explain the remarkable arrangement of the eggs. The openings in the rind of the twig are practically equidistant, since each time the Cigale moves upward it is by a given length, namely, that of the ovipositor. Very rapid in flight, she is a very idle walker. At the most you may see her, on the living twig from which she is drinking, moving at a slow, almost solemn pace, to gain a more sunny point close at hand. On the dry twig in which she deposits her eggs she observes the same formal habits, and even exaggerates them, in view of the importance of the operation. She moves as little as possible, just so far as she must in order to avoid running two adjacent egg-chambers into one. The extent of each movement upwards is approximately determined by the depth of the perforation.

The apertures are arranged in a straight line when their number is not very large. Why, indeed, should the insect wander to right or to left upon a twig which presents the same surface all over? A lover of the sun, she chooses that side of the twig which is most exposed to it. So long as she feels the heat, her supreme joy, upon her back, she will take good care not to change the position which she finds so delightful for another in which the sun would fall upon her less directly.

The process of depositing the eggs is a lengthy one when it is carried out entirely on the same twig. Counting ten minutes for each egg-chamber, the full series of forty would represent a period of six or seven hours. The sun will of course move through a considerable distance before the Cigale can finish her work. In such cases the series of apertures follows a spiral curve. The insect turns round the stalk as the sun turns.

Very often as the Cigale is absorbed in her maternal task a diminutive fly, also full of eggs, busily exterminates the Cigale's eggs as fast as they are laid.

This insect was known to Réaumur. In nearly all the twigs examined he found its grub, the cause of a misunderstanding at the beginning of his researches. But he did not, could not see the audacious insect at work. It is one of the Chalcididæ, about one-fifth or one-sixth of an inch in length; entirely black, with knotty antennæ, which are slightly thicker towards their extremities. The unsheathed ovipositor is implanted in the under portion of the abdomen, about the middle, and at right angles to the axis of the body, as in the case of the Leucospis, the pest of the apiary. Not having taken the precaution to capture it, I do not know what name the entomologists have bestowed upon it, or even if this dwarf exterminator of the Cigale has as yet been catalogued. What I am familiar with is its calm temerity, its impudent audacity in the presence of the colossus who could crush it with a foot. I have seen as many as three at once exploiting the unfortunate female. They keep close behind the Cigale, working busily with their probes, or waiting until their victim deposits her eggs.

The Cigale fills one of her egg-chambers and climbs a little higher in order to bore another hole. One of the bandits runs to the abandoned station, and there, almost under the claws of the giant, and without the least nervousness, as if it were accomplishing some meritorious action, it unsheathes its probe and thrusts it into the column of eggs, not by the open aperture, which is bristling with broken fibres, but by a lateral fissure. The probes works slowly, as the wood is almost intact. The Cigale has time to fill the adjacent chamber.

As soon as she has finished one of these midges, the very same that has been performing its task below her, replaces her and introduces its disastrous egg. By the time the Cigale departs, her ovaries empty, the majority of the egg-chambers have thus received the alien egg which will work the destruction of their contents. A small, quick-hatching grub, richly nourished on a dozen eggs, will replace the family of the Cigale.

The experience of centuries has taught the Cigale nothing. With her excellent eyesight she must be able to perceive these terrible sappers as they hover about her, meditating their crime. Too peaceable giantess! if you see them why do you not seize them in your talons, crush the pigmies at their work, so that you may proceed with your travail in security? But no, you will leave them untouched; you cannot modify your instincts, even to alleviate your maternal misfortunes.

The eggs of the common Cigale are of a shining ivory white. Conical at the ends, and elongated in form, they might be compared in shape to the weaver's shuttle. Their length is about one-tenth of an inch, their diameter about one-fiftieth. They are packed in a row, slightly overlapping one another. The eggs of the Cacan are slightly smaller, and are assembled in regular groups which remind one of microscopical bundles of cigars. We will consider the eggs of the common Cigale to the exclusion of the others, as their history is the history of all.

September is not yet over when the shining white as of ivory gives way to the yellow hue of cheese. During the first days of October you may see, at the forward end of the egg, two tiny points of chestnut brown, which are the eyes of the embryo in formation. These two shining eyes, which almost seem to gaze at one, and the cone-shaped head of the egg, give it the look of a tiny fish without fins—a fish for whom half a nut-shell would make a capacious aquarium.

About the same time I notice frequently, on the asphodels in the paddock and on those of the neighbouring hills, certain indications that the eggs have recently hatched out. There are certain cast-off articles of clothing, certain rags and tatters, left on the threshold of the egg-chamber by the new-born grubs as they leave it and hurry in search of a new lodging. We shall see in a moment what these vestiges mean.

But in spite of my visits, which were so assiduous as to deserve success, I had never contrived to see the young Cigales emerge from their egg-chambers. My domestic researches had been pursued in vain. Two years running I had collected, in boxes, tubes, and bottles, a hundred twigs of every kind which were peopled by the eggs of the Cigale; but not one had shown me what I so desired to witness: the issue of the new-born Cigales.

Réaumur experienced the same disappointment. He tells us how all the eggs supplied by his friends were abortive, even when he placed them in a glass tube thrust under his armpit, in order to keep them at a high temperature. No, venerable master! neither the temperate shelter of our studies and laboratories, nor the incubating warmth of our bodies is sufficient here; we need the supreme stimulant, the kiss of the sun; after the cool of the mornings, which are already sharp, the sudden blaze of the superb autumn weather, the last endearments of summer.

It was under such circumstances, when a blazing sun followed a cold night, that I found the signs of completed incubation; but I always came too late; the young Cigales had departed. At most I sometimes found one hanging by a thread to its natal stem and struggling in the air. I supposed it to be caught in a thread of gossamer, or some shred of cobweb.

At last, on the 27th of October, despairing of success, I gathered some asphodels from the orchard, and the armful of dry twigs in which the Cigales had laid their eggs was taken up to my study. Before giving up all hope I proposed once more to examine the egg-chambers and their contents. The morning was cold, and the first fire of the season had been lit in my room. I placed my little bundle on a chair before the fire, but without any intention of testing the effect of the heat of the flames upon the concealed eggs. The twigs, which I was about to cut open, one by one, were placed there to be within easy reach of my hand, and for no other reason.

Then, while I was examining a split twig with my magnifying-glass, the phenomenon which I had given up all hope of observing took place under my eyes. My bundle of twigs was suddenly alive; scores and scores of the young larvæ were emerging from their egg-chambers. Their numbers were such that my ambition as observer was amply satisfied. The eggs were ripe, on the point of hatching, and the warmth of the fire, bright and penetrating, had the effect of sunlight in the open. I was quick to profit by the unexpected piece of good fortune.

At the orifice of the egg-chamber, among the torn fibres of the bark, a little cone-shaped body is visible, with two black eye-spots; in appearance it is precisely like the fore portion of the butter-coloured egg; or, as I have said, like the fore portion of a tiny fish. You would think that an egg had been somehow displaced, had been removed from the bottom of the chamber to its aperture. An egg to move in this narrow passage! a walking egg! No, that is impossible; eggs "do not do such things!" This is some mistake. We will break open the twig, and the mystery is unveiled. The actual eggs are where they always were, though they are slightly disarranged. They are empty, reduced to the condition of transparent skins, split wide open at the upper end. From them has issued the singular organism whose most notable characteristics are as follows:—

In its general form, the configuration of the head and the great black eyes, the creature, still more than the egg, has the appearance of an extremely minute fish. A simulacrum of a ventral fin increases the resemblance. This apparent fin in reality consists of the two fore-limbs, which, packed in a special sheath, are bent backwards, stretched out against one another in a straight line. Its small degree of mobility must enable the grub to escape from the egg-shell and, with greater difficulty, from the woody tunnel leading to the open air. Moving outwards a little from the body, and then moving back again, this lever serves as a means of progression, its terminal hooks being already fairly strong. The four other feet are still covered by the common envelope, and are absolutely inert. It is the same with the antennæ, which can scarcely be seen through the magnifying-glass. The organism which has issued from the egg is a boat-shaped body with a fin-shaped limb pointing backwards on the ventral face, formed by the junction of the two fore-limbs. The segmentation of the body is very clear, especially on the abdomen. The whole body is perfectly smooth, without the least suspicion of hair.

What name are we to give to this initial phase of the Cigale—a phase so strange, so unforeseen, and hitherto unsuspected? Must I amalgamate some more or less appropriate words of Greek and fabricate a portentous nomenclature? No, for I feel sure that barbarous alien phrases are only a hindrance to science. I will call it simply the primary larva, as I have done in the case of the Meloides, the Leucospis, and the Anthrax.

The form of the primary larva of the Cigale is eminently adapted to its conditions and facilitates its escape. The tunnel in which the egg is hatched is very narrow, leaving only just room for passage. Moreover, the eggs are arranged in a row, not end to end, but partially overlapping. The larva escaping from the hinder ranks has to squeeze past the empty shells, still in position, of the eggs which have already hatched, so that the narrowness of the passage is increased by the empty egg-shells. Under these conditions the larva as it will be presently, when it has torn its temporary wrappings, would be unable to effect the difficult passage. With the encumbrance of antennæ, with long limbs spreading far out from the axis of the body, with curved, pointed talons which hook themselves into their medium of support, everything would militate against a prompt liberation. The eggs in one chamber hatch almost simultaneously. It is therefore essential that the first-born larvæ should hurry out of their shelter as quickly as possible, leaving the passage free for those behind them. Hence the boat-like shape, the smooth hairless body without projections, which easily squeezes its way past obstructions. The primary larva, with its various appendages closely wrapped against its body by a common sheath, with its fish-like form and its single and only partially movable limb, is perfectly adapted to make the difficult passage to the outer air.

This phase is of short duration. Here, for instance, a migrating larva shows its head, with its big black eyes, and raises the broken fibres of the entrance. It gradually works itself forward, but so slowly that the magnifying-glass scarcely reveals its progress. At the end of half an hour at the shortest we see the entire body of the creature; but the orifice by which it is escaping still holds it by the hinder end of the body.

Then, without further delay, the coat which it wears for this rough piece of work begins to split, and the larva skins itself, coming out of its wrappings head first. It is then the normal larva; the only form known to Réaumur. The rejected coat forms a suspensory thread, expanding at its free end to form a little cup. In this cup is inserted the end of the abdomen of the larva, which, before allowing itself to fall to earth, takes a sun-bath, grows harder, stretches itself, and tries its strength, lightly swinging at the end of its life-line.

This little flea, as Réaumur calls it, first white, then amber-coloured, is precisely the larva which will delve in the earth. The antennæ, of fair length, are free and waving to and fro; the limbs are bending at their articulations; the fore-limbs, which are relatively powerful, open and shut their talons. I can scarcely think of any more curious spectacle than that of this tiny gymnast hanging by its tail, swinging to the faintest breath, and preparing in the air for its entry into the world. It hangs there for a variable period; some larvæ let themselves fall at the end of half an hour; others spend hours in their long-stemmed cup; some even remain suspended until the following day.

Whether soon or late, the fall of the larva leaves suspended the thread by which it hung, the wrappings of the primary larva. When all the brood have disappeared, the aperture of the nest is thus hung with a branch of fine, short threads, twisted and knotted together, like dried white of egg. Each thread is expanded into a tiny cup at its free end. These are very delicate and ephemeral relics, which perish at a touch. The least wind quickly blows them away.

Let us return to the larva. Sooner or later, as we have seen, it falls to the ground, either by accident or intention. The tiny creature, no bigger than a flea, has preserved its tender newly-hatched flesh from contact with the rough earth by hanging in the air until its tissues have hardened. Now it plunges into the troubles of life.

I foresee a thousand dangers ahead. A mere breath of wind may carry this atom away, and cast it on that inaccessible rock in the midst of a rut in the road which still contains a little water; or on the sand, the region of famine where nothing grows; or upon a soil of clay, too tenacious to be tunnelled. These mortal accidents are frequent, for gusts of wind are frequent in the windy and already severe weather of the end of October.

This delicate organism requires a very soft soil, which can easily be entered, so that it may immediately obtain a suitable shelter. The cold days are coming; soon the frosts will be here. To wander on the surface would expose it to grave perils. It must contrive without delay to descend into the earth, and that to no trivial depth. This is the unique and imperative condition of safety, and in many cases it is impossible of realisation. What use are the claws of this tiny flea against rock, sandstone, or hardened clay? The creature must perish if it cannot find a subterranean refuge in good time.

Everything goes to show that the necessity of this first foothold on the soil, subject as it is to so many accidents, is the cause of the great mortality in the Cigale family. The little black parasite, the destroyer of eggs, in itself evokes the necessity of a large batch of eggs; and the difficulty which the larva experiences in effecting a safe lodgment in the earth is yet another explanation of the fact that the maintenance of the race at its proper strength requires a batch of three or four hundred eggs from each mother. Subject to many accidents, the Cigale is fertile to excess. By the prodigality of her ovaries she conjures the host of perils which threaten her offspring.

During the rest of my experiment I can at least spare the larvæ the worst difficulties of their first establishment underground. I take some soil from the heath, which is very soft and almost black, and I pass it through a fine sieve. Its colour will enable me more easily to find the tiny fair-skinned larvæ when I wish to inform myself of passing events; its lightness makes it a suitable refuge for such weak and fragile beings. I pack it Pretty firmly in a glass vase; I plant in it a little tuft of thyme; I sow in it a few grains of wheat. There is no hole at the bottom of the vase, although there should be one for the benefit of the thyme and the corn; but the captives would find it and escape by it. The plantation and the crop will suffer from this lack of drainage, but at least I am sure of recovering my larvæ with the help of patience and a magnifying-glass. Moreover, I shall go gently in the matter of irrigation, giving only just enough water to save the plants from perishing.

When all is in order, and when the wheat is beginning to shoot, I place six young larvæ of the Cigale on the surface of the soil. The tiny creatures begin to pace hither and thither; they soon explore the surface of their world, and some try vainly to climb the sides of the vase. Not one of them seems inclined to bury itself; so that I ask myself anxiously what can be the object of their prolonged and active explorations. Two hours go by, but their wanderings continue.

What do they want? Food? I offer them some tiny bulbs with bundles of sprouting roots, a few fragments of leaves and some fresh blades of grass. Nothing tempts them; nothing brings them to a standstill. Apparently they are seeking for a favourable point before descending into the earth. But there is no need for this hesitating exploration on the soil I have prepared for them; the whole area, or so it seems to me, lends itself excellently to the operations which I am expecting to see them commence. Yet apparently it will not answer the purpose.

Under natural conditions a little wandering might well be indispensable. Spots as soft as my bed of earth from the roots of the briar-heather, purged of all hard bodies and finely sifted, are rare in nature. Coarse soils are more usual, on which the tiny creatures could make no impression. The larva must wander at hazard, must make a pilgrimage of indefinite duration before finding a favourable place. Very many, no doubt, perish, exhausted by their fruitless search. A voyage of exploration in a country a few inches wide evidently forms part of the curriculum of young Cigales. In my glass prison, so luxuriously furnished, this pilgrimage is useless. Never mind: it must be accomplished according to the consecrated rites.

At last my wanderers grow less excited. I see them attack the earth with the curved talons of their fore-limbs, digging their claws into it and making such an excavation as the point of a thick needle would enter. With a magnifying-glass I watch their picks at work. I see their talons raking atom after atom of earth to the surface. In a few minutes there is a little gaping well. The larva climbs downwards and buries itself, henceforth invisible.

On the morrow I turn out the contents of the vase without breaking the mould, which is held together by the roots of the thyme and the wheat. I find all my larvæ at the bottom, arrested by the glass. In twenty-four hours they had sunk themselves through the entire thickness of the earth—a matter of some four inches. But for obstacle at the bottom they would have sunk even further.

On the way they have probably encountered the rootlets of my little plantation. Did they halt in order to take a little nourishment by implanting their proboscis? This is hardly probable, for a few rootlets were pressed against the bottom of the glass, but none of my prisoners were feeding. Perhaps the shock of reversing the pot detached them.

It is obvious that underground there is no other nourishment for them than the sap of roots. Adult or larva, the Cigale is a strict vegetarian. As an adult insect it drinks the sap of twigs and branches; as a larva it sucks the sap of roots. But at what stage does it take the first sip? That I do not know as yet, but the foregoing experiment seems to show that the newly hatched larva is in greater haste to burrow deep into the soil, so as to obtain shelter from the coming winter, than to station itself at the roots encountered in its passage downwards.

I replace the mass of soil in the vase, and the six exhumed larvæ are once more placed on the surface of the soil. This time they commence to dig at once, and have soon disappeared. Finally the vase is placed in my study window, where it will be subject to the influences, good and ill, of the outer air.

A month later, at the end of November, I pay the young Cigales a second visit. They are crouching, isolated at the bottom of the mould. They do not adhere to the roots; they have not grown; their appearance has not altered. Such as they were at the beginning of the experiment, such they are now, but rather less active. Does not this lack of growth during November, the mildest month of winter, prove that no nourishment is taken until the spring?

The young Sitares, which are also very minute, directly they issue from the egg at the entrance of the tubes of the Anthrophorus, remain motionless, assembled in a heap, and pass the whole of the winter in a state of complete abstinence. The young Cigales apparently behave in a very similar fashion. Once they have burrowed to such depths as will safeguard them from the frosts they sleep in solitude in their winter quarters, and await the return of spring before piercing some neighbouring root and taking their first repast.

I have tried unsuccessfully to confirm these deductions by observation. In April I unpotted my plant of thyme for the third time. I broke up the mould and spread it under the magnifying-glass. It was like looking for needles in a haystack; but at last I recovered my little Cigales. They were dead, perhaps of cold, in spite of the bell-glass with which I had covered the pot, or perhaps of starvation, if the thyme was not a suitable food-plant. I give up the problem as too difficult of solution.

To rear such larvæ successfully one would require a deep, extensive bed of earth which would shelter them from the winter cold; and, as I do not know what roots they prefer, a varied vegetation, so that the little creatures could choose according to their taste. These conditions are by no means impracticable, but how, in the large earthy mass, containing at least a cubic yard of soil, should we recover the atoms I had so much trouble to find in a handful of black soil from the heath? Moreover, such a laborious search would certainly detach the larva from its root.

The early subterranean life of the Cigale escapes us. That of the maturer larva is no better known. Nothing is more common, while digging in the fields to any depth, to find these impetuous excavators under the spade; but to surprise them fixed upon the roots which incontestably nourish them is quite another matter. The disturbance of the soil warns the larva of danger. It withdraws its proboscis in order to retreat along its galleries, and when the spade uncovers it has ceased to feed.

If the hazards of field-work, with its inevitable disturbance of the larvæ, cannot teach us anything of their subterranean habits, we can at least learn something of the duration of the larval stage. Some obliging farmers, who were making some deep excavations in March, were good enough to collect for me all the larvæ, large and small, unearthed in the course of their labour. The total collection amounted to several hundreds. They were divided, by very clearly marked differences of size, into three categories: the large larvæ, with rudiments of wings, such as those larvæ caught upon leaving the earth possess; the medium-sized, and the small. Each of these stages must correspond to a different age. To these we may add the larvæ produced by the last hatching of eggs, creatures too minute to be noticed by my rustic helpers, and we obtain four years as the probable term of the larvæ underground.

The length of their aerial existence is more easily computed. I hear the first Cigales about the summer solstice. A month later the orchestra has attained its full power. A very few late singers execute their feeble solos until the middle of September. This is the end of the concert. As all the larvæ do not issue from the ground at the same time, it is evident that the singers of September are not contemporary with those that began to sing at the solstice. Taking the average between these two dates, we get five weeks as the probable duration of the Cigales' life on earth.

Four years of hard labour underground, and a month of feasting in the sun; such is the life of the Cigale. Do not let us again reproach the adult insect with his triumphant delirium. For four years, in the darkness he has worn a dirty parchment overall; for four years he has mined the soil with his talons, and now the mud-stained sapper is suddenly clad in the finest raiment, and provided with wings that rival the bird's; moreover, he is drunken with heat and flooded with light, the supreme terrestrial joy. His cymbals will never suffice to celebrate such felicity, so well earned although so ephemeral.

CHAPTER V

There is another creature of the Midi which is quite as curious and interesting as the Cigale, but much less famous, as it is voiceless. If Providence had provided it with cymbals, which are a prime element of popularity, it would soon have eclipsed the renown of the celebrated singer, so strange is its shape, and so peculiar its manners. It is called by the Provençals lou Prègo-Diéu, the creature which prays to God. Its official name is the Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa, Lin.).

For once the language of science and the vocabulary of the peasant agree. Both represent the Mantis as a priestess delivering oracles, or an ascetic in a mystic ecstasy. The comparison is a matter of antiquity. The ancient Greeks called the insect Μἁντιϛ, the divine, the prophet. The worker in the fields is never slow in perceiving analogies; he will always generously supplement the vagueness of the facts. He has seen, on the sun-burned herbage of the meadows, an insect of commanding appearance, drawn up in majestic attitude. He has noticed its wide, delicate wings of green, trailing behind it like long linen veils; he has seen its fore-limbs, its arms, so to speak, raised towards to the sky in a gesture of invocation. This was enough: popular imagination has done the rest; so that since the period of classical antiquity the bushes have been peopled with priestesses emitting oracles and nuns in prayer.

Good people, how very far astray your childlike simplicity has led you! These attitudes of prayer conceal the most atrocious habits; these supplicating arms are lethal weapons; these fingers tell no rosaries, but help to exterminate the unfortunate passer-by. It is an exception that we should never look for in the vegetarian family of the Orthoptera, but the Mantis lives exclusively upon living prey. It is the tiger of the peaceful insect peoples; the ogre in ambush which demands a tribute of living flesh. If it only had sufficient strength its blood-thirsty appetites, and its horrible perfection of concealment would make it the terror of the countryside. The Prègo-Diéu would become a Satanic vampire.

Apart from its lethal weapon the Mantis has nothing about it to inspire apprehension. It does not lack a certain appearance of graciousness, with its slender body, its elegant waist-line, its tender green colouring, and its long gauzy wings. No ferocious jaws, opening like shears; on the contrary, a fine pointed muzzle which seems to be made for billing and cooing. Thanks to a flexible neck, set freely upon the thorax, the head can turn to right or left as on a pivot, bow, or raise itself high in the air. Alone among insects, the Mantis is able to direct its gaze; it inspects and examines; it has almost a physiognomy.

There is a very great contrast between the body as a whole, which has a perfectly peaceable aspect, and the murderous fore-limbs. The haunch of the fore-limb is unusually long and powerful. Its object is to throw forward the living trap which does not wait for the victim, but goes in search of it. The snare is embellished with a certain amount of ornamentation. On the inner face the base of the haunch is decorated with a pretty black spot relieved by smaller spots of white, and a few rows of fine pearly spots complete the ornamentation.

The thigh, still longer, like a flattened spindle, carries on the forward half of the lower face a double row of steely spines. The innermost row contains a dozen, alternately long and black and short and green. This alternation of unequal lengths makes the weapon more effectual for holding. The outer row is simpler, having only four teeth. Finally, three needle-like spikes, the longest of all, rise behind the double series of spikes. In short, the thigh is a saw with two parallel edges, separated by a groove in which the foreleg lies when folded.

The foreleg, which is attached to the thigh by a very flexible articulation, is also a double-edged saw, but the teeth are smaller, more numerous, and closer than those of the thigh. It terminates in a strong hook, the point of which is as sharp as the finest needle: a hook which is fluted underneath and has a double blade like a pruning-knife.

A weapon admirably adapted for piercing and tearing, this hook has sometimes left me with visible remembrances. Caught in turn by the creature which I had just captured, and not having both hands free, I have often been obliged to get a second person to free me from my tenacious captive! To free oneself by violence without disengaging the firmly implanted talons would result in lacerations such as the thorns of a rosebush will produce. None of our insects is so inconvenient to handle. The Mantis digs its knife-blades into your flesh, pierces you with its needles, seizes you as in a vice, and renders self-defence almost impossible if, wishing to take your quarry alive, you refrain from crushing it out of existence.

When the Mantis is in repose its weapons are folded and pressed against the thorax, and are perfectly inoffensive in appearance. The insect is apparently praying. But let a victim come within reach, and the attitude of prayer is promptly abandoned. Suddenly unfolded, the three long joints of the deadly fore-limbs shoot out their terminal talons, which strike the victim and drag it backwards between the two saw-blades of the thighs. The vice closes with a movement like that of the forearm upon the upper arm, and all is over; crickets, grasshoppers, and even more powerful insects, once seized in this trap with its four rows of teeth, are lost irreparably. Their frantic struggles will never release the hold of this terrible engine of destruction.

The habits of the Mantis cannot be continuously studied in the freedom of the fields; the insect must be domesticated. There is no difficulty here; the Mantis is quite indifferent to imprisonment under glass, provided it is well fed. Offer it a tasty diet, feed it daily, and it will feel but little regret for its native thickets.

For cages I use a dozen large covers of wire gauze, such as are used in the larder to protect meat from the flies. Each rests upon a tray full of sand. A dry tuft of thyme and a flat stone on which the eggs may be laid later on complete the furnishing of such a dwelling. These cages are placed in a row on the large table in my entomological laboratory, where the sun shines on them during the greater part of the day. There I install my captives; some singly, some in groups.

It is in the latter half of August that I begin to meet with the adult insect on the faded herbage and the brambles at the roadside. The females, whose bellies are already swollen, are more numerous every day. Their slender companions, on the other hand, are somewhat rare, and I often have some trouble in completing my couples; whose relations will finally be terminated by a tragic consummation. But we will reserve these amenities for a later time, and will consider the females first.

They are tremendous eaters, so that their entertainment, when it lasts for some months is not without difficulties. Their provisions must be renewed every day, for the greater part are disdainfully tasted and thrown aside. On its native bushes I trust the Mantis is more economical. Game is not too abundant, so that she doubtless devours her prey to the last atom; but in my cages it is always at hand. Often, after a few mouthfuls, the insect will drop the juicy morsel without displaying any further interest in it. Such is the ennui of captivity!

To provide them with a luxurious table I have to call in assistants. Two or three of the juvenile unemployed of my neighbourhood, bribed by slices of bread and jam or of melon, search morning and evening on the neighbouring lawns, where they fill their game-bags, little cases made from sections of reeds, with living grasshoppers and crickets. On my own part, I make a daily tour of the paddock, net in hand, with the object of obtaining some choice dish for my guests.

These particular captures are destined to show me just how far the vigour and audacity of the Mantis will lead it. They include the large grey cricket (Pachytylus cinerascens, Fab.), which is larger than the creature which devours it; the white-faced Decticus, armed with powerful mandibles from which it is wise to guard one's fingers; the grotesque Truxalis, wearing a pyramidal mitre on its head; and the Ephippigera of the vineyards, which clashes its cymbals and carries a sabre at the end of its barrel-shaped abdomen. To this assortment of disobliging creatures let us add two horrors: the silky Epeirus, whose disc-shaped scalloped abdomen is as big as a shilling, and the crowned Epeirus, which is horribly hairy and corpulent.

I cannot doubt that the Mantis attacks such adversaries in a state of nature when I see it, under my wire-gauze covers, boldly give battle to whatever is placed before it. Lying in wait among the bushes it must profit by the prizes bestowed upon it by hazard, as in its cage it profits by the wealth of diet due to my generosity. The hunting of such big game as I offer, which is full of danger, must form part of the creature's usual life, though it may be only an occasional pastime, perhaps to the great regret of the Mantis.

Crickets of all kinds, butterflies, bees, large flies of many species, and other insects of moderate size: such is the prey that we habitually find in the embrace of the murderous arms of the Mantis. But in my cages I have never known the audacious huntress to recoil before any other insect. Grey cricket, Decticus, Epeirus or Truxalis, sooner or later all are harpooned, held motionless between the saw-edges of the arms, and deliciously crunched at leisure. The process deserves a detailed description.