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.

When I wished to rear some green grasshoppers I had not far to seek for the diet of my pensioners; I fed them on Cigales, of which enormous numbers were consumed in my breeding-cages.

It is therefore an established fact that the green grasshopper, the false Cigale of the North, will eagerly devour the true Cigale, the inhabitant of the Midi.
But it is neither the sparrow nor the green grasshopper that has forced the Cigale to produce such a vast number of offspring.

The real danger is elsewhere, as we shall see.