The risk is enormous at the moment of hatching and also when the egg is laid.
Two or three weeks after its escape from the earth--that is, about the middle of July--the Cigale begins to lay.

In order to observe the process without trusting too much to chance, I took certain precautions which would, I felt sure, prove successful.

The dry Asphodelus is the support preferred by the insect, as previous observations had assured me.

It was also the plant which best lent itself to my experiments, on account of its long, smooth stems.

Now, during the first years of my residence in the South I replaced the thistles in my paddock by other native plants of a less stubborn and prickly species.