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Time and again I have seen heavy army trucks lumbering down the avenue, bearing in huge chalk letters on either side of the awning-covered sides, such inscriptions as Bon jour, Montmartre. A bientot la Cigale Greetings from the Front and like nonsense, denoting not only a homesick heart, but a delicate attention towards a well beloved.
The Decticus, endowed with only one indifferent "mirror," can be heard only at a few paces; the Cricket, the possessor of four vibratory areas, can be heard at a hundred yards. The Cricket rivals the Cigale in loudness, but his note has not the displeasing, raucous quality of the latter. Better still: he has the gift of expression, for he can sing loud or soft.
Every Cigale encountered by the ferocious grasshopper on its nocturnal round must miserably perish. Thus are explained those sudden squeaks of anguish which are sometimes heard in the boughs during the hours of the night and early morning, although the cymbals have long been silent. The sea-green bandit has fallen upon some slumbering Cigale.
Counting ten minutes for each egg-chamber, the full series of forty would represent a period of six or seven hours. The sun will of course move through a considerable distance before the Cigale can finish her work. In such cases the series of apertures follows a spiral curve. The insect turns round the stalk as the sun turns.
"But love eh, ma cigale!" Then he took her eagerly, tenderly into his arms; and probably he had then the best moment in his life. Sophie Farcinelle saw them driving back together. She was sitting at early supper with Magon, when, raising her head at the sound of wheels, she saw Christine laughing and Ferrol leaning affectionately towards her.
These conditions are by no means impracticable, but how, in the large earthy mass, containing at least a cubic yard of soil, should we recover the atoms I had so much trouble to find in a handful of black soil from the heath? Moreover, such a laborious search would certainly detach the larva from its root. The early subterranean life of the Cigale escapes us.
The Greek, not finding in his country the insect of which the Hindoo spoke, introduced the Cigale, as in Paris, the modern Athens, the Cigale has been replaced by the Grasshopper. The mistake was made; henceforth indelible. Entrusted as it is to the memory of childhood, error will prevail against the truth that lies before our eyes.
He gives me permission to take from his pigeon-holes the following Provençal poem, in which the relations between the Cigale and the Ant are expounded with all the rigour of science.
The words lodge in the childish memory, never to be forgotten. To most Englishmen to most Frenchmen even the song of the Cigale is unknown, for she dwells in the country of the olive-tree; but we all know of the treatment she received at the hands of the Ant. On such trifles does Fame depend!
They keep close behind the Cigale, working busily with their probes, or waiting until their victim deposits her eggs. The Cigale fills one of her egg-chambers and climbs a little higher in order to bore another hole.
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