The expansion begins near the shoulder. Where at first nothing definite was to be distinguished, we soon see a diaphanous area subdivided into meshes of exquisite precision. Little by little, with a slowness that defies observation even through the magnifying-glass, this area increases in extent at the expense of the shapeless terminal roll. My eyes linger in vain on the confines of the two portions, the roll developing and the gauze already developed: I see nothing, see no more than I should see in a sheet of water. But wait a moment; and the tissue of squares stands out with perfect clearness. If we judged only by this first examination, we should really think that an organizable fluid is abruptly congealing into a network of nervures; we should imagine that we were in the presence of a crystallization similar, in its suddenness, to that of a saline solution on the slide of a microscope. Well, no: things cannot be actually happening like that. Life does not perform its tasks so hastily. I detach a half-developed wing and turn the powerful eye of the microscope upon it. This time I am satisfied. On the confines where the network seemed to be gradually woven, that network was really in existence. I can plainly see the longitudinal nervures, already thick and strong; and I can also see, pale, it is true, and without relief, the cross-bars. I find them all in the terminal roll, of which I succeed in unfolding a few strips. It is obvious. The wing is not at this moment a fabric on the loom, through which the procreative energies are driving their shuttle; it is a fabric already completed. All that it lacks to be perfect is expansion and stiffness, even as our linen needs only starching and ironing. The flattening out is finished in three hours or more. The wings and wing-cases stand up on the Locust’s back like a huge set of sails, sometimes colourless, sometimes pale-green, as are the Cicada’s wings at the beginning. We are amazed at their size when we think of the paltry bundles that represented them at first. How did so much stuff manage to find room there! The fairy-tales tell us of a grain of hemp-seed that contained the underlinen of a princess. Here is a grain that is even more astonishing. The one in the story took years and years to sprout and multiply and at last to yield the quantity of hemp required for the trousseau; the Locust’s supplies a sumptuous set of sails in a short space of time.