They bite into it, certainly, but very sparingly and with a scornful tooth.

It soon becomes plain that I am dealing with half-hearted vegetarians.

They want something else: they are beasts of prey, apparently.

But what manner of prey?
A lucky chance taught me.
At break of day I was pacing up and down outside my door, when something fell from the nearest plane-tree with a shrill grating sound.
I ran up and saw a Grasshopper gutting the belly of a struggling Cicada.

In vain the victim buzzed and waved his limbs: the other did not let go, dipping her head right into the entrails and rooting them out by small mouthfuls.
I knew what I wanted to know: the attack had taken place up above, early in the morning, while the Cicada was asleep; and the plunging of the poor wretch, dissected alive, had made assailant and assailed fall in a bundle to the ground.