[Illustration: Fig. 80.--Female Cicada laying her eggs in the groove she has bored in the branch of a tree.] From these eggs come very small white grubs (Fig. 81), which leave their nest, descend by the trunk, and bury themselves in the ground, where they devour the roots of the tree. They then become pupæ, 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 pupæ (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 catch them, for owing to their large, highly-developed wings, they fly rapidly away on the slightest noise. They inhabit the south of Europe, the whole of Africa from north to south, America in the same latitudes as Europe, the whole of the centre and south of Asia, New Holland, and the islands of Oceania. The Cicada, which in hot climates always exposes itself to the ardour of the most scorching sun, is not found in temperate or cold regions. The consequence is that the southern nations know it very well, whilst in the north the large grasshopper, which is so common in those regions, and whose song closely resembles that of the Cicada, is commonly taken for it. There was to be seen at the Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1866 a picture by M. Aussandon, "La Cigale et la Fourmi," which showed, under an allegorical shape, the subject of La Fontaine's fable. The painter here represented the Cigale, or Cicada, under the form of a magnificent apple-green grasshopper. The artist materialised here, as we may say, the common mistake of the inhabitants of the north, which makes them confound the Cicada with the great green grasshopper. [Illustration: Fig. 81.--Larva of the Cicada.] [Illustration: Fig. 82.--Pupa of the Cicada.] For the rest, we may, by-the-by, say that La Fontaine's fable of "La Cigale et la Fourmi" is full of errors in natural history. Nothing is easier than to prove the truth of this assertion. From the very first verses, the author shows that he has never observed the animal of which he speaks. "La Cigale ayant chanté Tout l'été." No Cicada could sing "tout l'été," since it lives at the utmost for a few weeks only. "Se trouva fort dépourvue Quand la bise fut venue."