incontestably
nourish them is quite another matter. The disturbance of the soil warns
the larva of danger. It withdraws its proboscis in order to retreat
along its galleries, and when the spade uncovers it has ceased to feed.

If the hazards of field-work, with its inevitable disturbance of the
larvae, cannot teach us anything of their subterranean habits, we can at
least learn something of the duration of the larval stage. Some obliging
farmers, who were making some deep excavations in March, were good
enough to collect for me all the larvae, large and small, unearthed in
the course of their labour. The total collection amounted to several
hundreds. They were divided, by very clearly marked differences of size,
into three categories: the large larvae, with rudiments of wings, such as
those larvae caught upon leaving the earth possess; the medium-sized, and
the small. Each of these stages must correspond to a different age. To
these we may add the larvae produced by the last hatching of eggs,
creatures too minute to be noticed by my rustic helpers, and we obtain
four years as the probable term of the larvae underground.

The length of their aerial existence is more easily computed. I hear the
first Cigales about the summer solstice. A month later the orchestra has
attained its full power. A very few late singers execute their feeble
solos until the middle of September. This is the end of the concert. As
all the larvae do not issue from the ground at the same time, it is
evident that the singers of September are not contemporary with those
that began to sing at the solstice. Taking the average between these two
dates, we get five weeks as the probable duration of the Cigales' life
on earth.

Four years of hard labour underground, and a month of feasting in the
sun; such is the life of the Cigale. Do not let us again reproach the
adult insect with his triumphant delirium. For four years, in the
darkness he has worn a dirty parchment overall; for four years he has
mined the soil with his talons, and now the mud-stained sapper is
suddenly clad in the finest raiment, and provided with wings that rival
the bird's; moreover, he is drunken with heat and flooded with light,
the supreme terrestrial joy. His cymbals will never suffice to celebrate
such felicity, so well earned although so ephemeral.

CHAPTER V

THE MANTIS.--THE CHASE

There is another creature of the Midi which is quite as curious and
interesting a