Certainly, the renowned animal-historian was remarkably well-informed as a rule. His royal pupil sent on his behalf to India, the land at that time so full of mystery, for the curiosities most impressive to Macedonian eyes; he received by caravan the Elephant, the Panther, the Tiger, the Rhinoceros, the Peacock; and he described them faithfully. But, in Macedonia itself, he knew the insect only through the peasant, that stubborn tiller of the soil, who found the tettigometra under his spade and was the first to know that a Cicada comes out of it. Aristotle, therefore, in his immense undertaking, was doing more or less what Pliny was to do later, with a much greater amount of artless credulity. He listened to the chit-chat of the country-side and set it down as veracious history. Rustic waggery is world-famous. The countryman is always ready to jeer at the trifles which we call science; he laughs at whoso stops to examine an insignificant insect; he goes into fits of laughter if he sees us picking up a pebble, looking at it and putting it in our pocket. The Greek peasant excelled in this sort of thing. He told the townsman that the tettigometra was a dish fit for the gods, of an incomparable flavour, suavissima gustu. But, while making his victim’s mouth water with hyperbolical praises, he put it out of his power to satisfy his longings, by laying down the essential condition that he must gather the delicious morsel before the shell had burst. I should like to see any one try to get together the material for a sufficiently copious dish by gathering a few handfuls of tettigometræ just coming out of the earth, when my squad of five took two hours to find four larvæ on ground rich in Cicadæ. Above all, mind that the skin does not break during your search, which will last for days and days, whereas the bursting takes place in a few minutes. My opinion is that Aristotle never tasted a fry of tettigometræ; and my own culinary experience is my witness. He is repeating some rustic jest in all good faith. His heavenly dish is too horrible for words. Oh, what a fine collection of stories I too could make about the Cicada, if I listened to all that my neighbours the peasants tell me! I will give one particular of his history and one alone, as related in the country. Have you any renal infirmity? Are you dropsical at all? Do you need a powerful depurative? The village pharmacopœia is unanimous in suggesting the Cicada as a sovran remedy. The insects are collected in summer, in their adult form. They are strung together and dried in the sun and are fondly preserved in a corner of the press. A housewife would think herself lacking in prudence if she allowed July to pass without threading her store of them.