The feeble creature needs very soft soil, easily entered, so as to obtain shelter immediately. The cold days are drawing nigh; the frosts are coming. To wander about on the surface of the ground for any length of time would expose us to grave dangers. We had better descend into the earth without delay; and that to a good depth. This one imperative condition of safety is in many cases impossible to realize. What can little Flea’s-claws do against rock, flint or hardened clay? The tiny creature must perish unless it can find an underground refuge in time. The first establishment, which is exposed to so many evil chances, is, so everything shows us, a cause of great mortality in the Cicada’s family. Already the little black parasite, the destroyer of the eggs, has told us how expedient it is for the mothers to accomplish a long and fertile laying; the difficulties attendant upon the initial installation in their turn explain why the maintenance of the race at its suitable strength requires three or four hundred eggs to be laid by each of them. Subject to excessive spoliation, the Cicada is fertile to excess. She averts by the richness of her ovaries the multitude of dangers threatening her. In the experiment which it remains for me to make, I will at least spare the larva the difficulties of the first installation. I select some very soft, very black heath-mould and pass it through a fine sieve. Its dark colour will enable me more easily to find the little yellow creature when I want to see what is happening; and its softness will suit the feeble mattock. I heap it not too tightly in a glass pot; I plant a little tuft of thyme in it; I sow a few grains of wheat. There is no hole at the bottom of the pot, though there ought to be, if the thyme and the wheat are to thrive; the captives, however, finding the hole, would be certain to escape through it. The plantation will suffer from this lack of drainage; but at least I am certain of finding my animals with the aid of my magnifying-glass and plenty of patience. Besides, I shall indulge in no excesses in the matter of irrigation, supplying only enough water to prevent the plants from dying. When everything is ready and the corn is beginning to put forth its first shoots, I place six young Cicada-larvæ on the surface of the soil. The puny grubs run about and explore the earthy bed pretty nimbly; some make unsuccessful attempts to climb the side of the pot. Not one seems inclined to bury itself, so much so that I anxiously wonder what the object can be of these active and prolonged investigations. Two hours pass and the restless roaming never ceases.