I put back the clod of heath-mould and for the second time place the six exhumed larvæ on the surface of the soil. Wells are dug without delay. The grubs disappear down them. Finally I put the pot in my study-window, where it will receive all the influences of the outer air, good and bad alike. A month later, at the end of November, I make a second inspection. The young Cicadæ are crouching, each by itself, at the bottom of the clod of earth. They are not clinging to the roots; they have not altered in appearance or in size. I find them now just as I saw them at the beginning of the experiment, only a little less active. Does not this absence of growth during the interval of November, the mildest month of winter, seem to show that no nourishment is taken throughout the cold season? The young Sitaris-beetles, [27] those other animated atoms, as soon as they issue from the egg at the entrance to the Anthophora’s [28] galleries, remain in motionless heaps and spend the winter in complete abstinence. The little Cicadæ would appear to behave in much the same manner. Once buried in depths where there is no fear of frosts, they sleep, solitary, in their winter-quarters and await the return of spring before broaching some root near by and taking their first refreshment. I have tried, but without success, to confirm by actual observation the inferences to be drawn from the above results. In the spring, in April, for the third time I unpot my plantation. I break up the clod and scrutinize it under the magnifying-glass. I feel as if I were looking for a needle in a haystack. At last I find my little Cicadæ. They are dead, perhaps of cold, notwithstanding the bell-glass with which I had covered the pot; perhaps of starvation, if the thyme did not suit them. The problem is too difficult to solve; I give it up. To succeed in this attempt at rearing one would need a very wide and deep bed of earth, providing a shelter from the rigours of winter, and, because I do not know which are the insect’s favourite roots, there would also have to be a varied vegetation, in which the little larvæ could choose according to their tastes. These conditions are quite practicable; but how is one afterwards to find in that huge mass of earth, measuring a cubic yard at least, the atom which I have so much trouble in distinguishing in a handful of black mould? And, besides, such conscientious digging would certainly detach the tiny creature from the root that nourishes it.