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 THE CIGALE. THE EGGS AND THEIR HATCHING The Cigale confides its eggs to dry, slender twigs. All the branches examined by Reaumur which bore such eggs were branches of the mulberry: a proof that the person entrusted with the search for these eggs in the neighbourhood of Avignon did not bring much variety to his quest. I find these eggs not only on the mulberry-tree, but on the peach, the cherry, the willow, the Japanese privet, and other trees. But these are exceptions; what the Cigale really prefers is a slender twig of a thickness varying from that of a straw to that of a pencil. It should have a thin woody layer and plenty of pith. If these conditions are fulfilled the species matters little. I should pass in review all the semi-ligneous plants of the country were I to catalogue the various supports which are utilised by the gravid female. 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.