The cicadae also lay their eggs in the canes on which
husbandmen prop vines, perforating the canes; and also in the stalks
of the squill. This brood runs into the ground. And they are most
numerous in rainy weather. The grub, on attaining full size in the
ground, becomes a tettigometra (or nymph), and the creature is
sweetest to the taste at this stage before the husk is broken. When
the summer solstice comes, the creature issues from the husk at
night-time, and in a moment, as the husk breaks, the larva becomes the
perfect cicada. creature, also, at once turns black in colour and
harder and larger, and takes to singing. In both species, the larger
and the smaller, it is the male that sings, and the female that is
unvocal. At first, the males are the sweeter eating; but, after
copulation, the females, as they are full then of white eggs.
If you make a sudden noise as they are flying overhead they let
drop something like water. Country people, in regard to this, say that
they are voiding urine, ie. that they have an excrement, and that they
feed upon dew.
If you present your finger to a cicada and bend back the tip
of it and then extend it again, it will endure the presentation more
quietly than if you were to keep your finger outstretched
altogether; and it will set to climbing your finger: for the
creature is so weak-sighted that it will take to climbing your
finger as though that were a moving leaf.
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