pharmacopoeia is unanimous in recommending the Cigale as a sovereign
remedy. The insects in the adult form are collected in summer. They are
strung into necklaces which are dried in the sun and carefully preserved
in some cupboard or drawer. A good housewife would consider it imprudent
to allow July to pass without threading a few of these insects.

Do you suffer from any nephritic irritation or from stricture? Drink an
infusion of Cigales. Nothing, they say, is more effectual. I must take
this opportunity of thanking the good soul who once upon a time, so I
was afterwards informed, made me drink such a concoction unawares for
the cure of some such trouble; but I still remain incredulous. I have
been greatly struck by the fact that the ancient physician of Anazarbus
used to recommend the same remedy. Dioscorides tells us: _Cicadæ, quae
inassatae manduntur, vesicae doloribus prosunt_. Since the distant days
of this patriarch of _materia medica_ the Provençal peasant has retained
his faith in the remedy revealed to him by the Greeks, who came from
Phocæa with the olive, the fig, and the vine. Only one thing is changed:
Dioscorides advises us to eat the Cigales roasted, but now they are
boiled, and the decoction is administered as medicine. The explanation
which is given of the diuretic properties of the insect is a marvel of
ingenuousness. The Cigale, as every one knows who has tried to catch it,
throws a jet of liquid excrement in one's face as it flies away. It
therefore endows us with its faculties of evacuation. Thus Dioscorides
and his contemporaries must have reasoned; so reasons the peasant of
Provence to-day.

What would you say, worthy neighbours, if you knew of the virtues of the
larva, which is able to mix sufficient mortar with its urine to build a
meteorological station and a shaft connecting with the outer world? Your
powers should equal those of Rabelais' Gargantua, who, seated upon the