As an adult insect it drinks the sap of twigs and branches; as a larva it sucks the sap of roots.

But at what stage does it take the first sip?
That I do not know as yet, but the foregoing experiment seems to show that the newly hatched larva is in greater haste to burrow deep into the soil, so as to obtain shelter from the coming winter, than to station itself at the roots encountered in its passage downwards.
I replace the mass of soil in the vase, and the six exhumed larvae are once more placed on the surface of the soil.

This time they commence to dig at once, and have soon disappeared.

Finally the vase is placed in my study window, where it will be subject to the influences, good and ill, of the outer air.
A month later, at the end of November, I pay the young Cigales a second visit.

They are crouching, isolated at the bottom of the mould.