Two years running I had collected, in boxes, tubes, and bottles, a hundred twigs of every kind which were peopled by the eggs of the Cigale; but not one had shown me what I so desired to witness: the issue of the new-born Cigales.
Reaumur experienced the same disappointment.

He tells us how all the eggs supplied by his friends were abortive, even when he placed them in a glass tube thrust under his armpit, in order to keep them at a high temperature.

No, venerable master! neither the temperate shelter of our studies and laboratories, nor the incubating warmth of our bodies is sufficient here; we need the supreme stimulant, the kiss of the sun; after the cool of the mornings, which are already sharp, the sudden blaze of the superb autumn weather, the last endearments of summer.
It was under such circumstances, when a blazing sun followed a cold night, that I found the signs of completed incubation; but I always came too late; the young Cigales had departed.

At most I sometimes found one hanging by a thread to its natal stem and struggling in the air.

I supposed it to be caught in a thread of gossamer, or some shred of cobweb.
At last, on the 27th of October, despairing of success, I gathered some asphodels from the orchard, and the armful of dry twigs in which the Cigales had laid their eggs was taken up to my study.