The skinning-operation makes rapid progress. Soon the head is free. Then the rostrum and the front legs gradually leave their sheaths. The body is horizontal, with the ventral surface turned upwards. Under the wide-open carapace appear the hinder legs, the last to be released. The wings are distended with moisture. They are still rumpled and look like stumps bent into a bow. This first phase of the transformation has taken but ten minutes. There remains the second, which lasts longer. The whole of the insect is free, except the tip of the abdomen, which is still contained in its scabbard. The cast skin continues to grip the twig. Stiffening as the result of quick desiccation, it preserves without change the attitude which it had at the start. It forms the pivot for what is about to follow. Fixed to his slough by the tip of the abdomen, which is not yet extracted, the Cicada turns over perpendicularly, head downwards. He is pale-green, tinged with yellow. The wings, until now compressed into thick stumps, straighten out, unfurl, spread under the rush of the liquid with which they are gorged. When this slow and delicate operation is ended, the Cicada, with an almost imperceptible movement, draws himself up by sheer strength of loin and resumes a normal position, head upwards. The fore-legs hook on to the empty skin; and at last the tip of the belly is drawn from its sheath. The extraction is over. The work has required half an hour altogether. Here is the whole insect, freed from its mask, but how different from what it will be presently! The wings are heavy, moist, transparent, with their veins a light green. The prothorax and mesothorax are barely tinged with brown. All the rest of the body is pale-green, whitish in places. It must bathe in air and sunshine for a long time before strength and colour can come to its frail body. About two hours pass without producing any noticeable change. Hanging to his cast skin by his fore-claws only, the Cicada sways at the least breath of air, still feeble and still green. At last the brown tinge appears, becomes more marked and is soon general. Half an hour has effected the change of colour. Slung from the suspension-twig at nine o’clock in the morning, the Cicada flies away, before my eyes, at half-past twelve. The cast skin remains, intact, save for its fissure, and so firmly fastened that the rough weather of autumn does not always succeed in bringing it to the ground. For some months yet, even during the winter, one often meets old skins hanging in the bushes in the exact position adopted by the larva at the moment of its transformation. Their horny nature, something like dry parchment, ensures a long existence for these relics.