On the way they have probably encountered the rootlets of my little
plantation. Did they halt in order to take a little nourishment by
implanting their proboscis? This is hardly probable, for a few rootlets
were pressed against the bottom of the glass, but none of my prisoners
were feeding. Perhaps the shock of reversing the pot detached them.

It is obvious that underground there is no other nourishment for them
than the sap of roots. Adult or larva, the Cigale is a strict
vegetarian. As an adult insect it drinks the sap of twigs and branches;
as a larva it sucks the sap of roots. But at what stage does it take the
first sip? That I do not know as yet, but the foregoing experiment seems
to show that the newly hatched larva is in greater haste to burrow deep
into the soil, so as to obtain shelter from the coming winter, than to
station itself at the roots encountered in its passage downwards.

I replace the mass of soil in the vase, and the six exhumed larvæ are
once more placed on the surface of the soil. This time they commence to
dig at once, and have soon disappeared. Finally the vase is placed in my
study window, where it will be subject to the influences, good and ill,
of the outer air.

A month later, at the end of November, I pay the young Cigales a second
visit. They are crouching, isolated at the bottom of the mould. They do
not adhere to the roots; they have not grown; their appearance has not
altered. Such as they were at the beginning of the experiment, such they
are now, but rather less active. Does not this lack of growth during
November, the mildest month of winter, prove that no nourishment is
taken until the spring?

The young Sitares, which are also very minute, directly they issue from