As with the larvae of Capricornis and Buprestes, it is enough for the traveller to have around it the small amount of free space necessitated by its movements.  Moist, soft, and easily compressible soil is to the larva of the Cigale what digested wood-pulp is to the others.  It is compressed without difficulty, and so leaves a vacant space.

The difficulty is that sometimes the burrow of exit from the waiting-place is driven through a very arid soil, which is extremely refractory to compression so long as it retains its aridity.  That the larva, when commencing the excavation of its burrow, has already thrust part of the detached material into a previously made gallery, now filled up and disappeared, is probable enough, although nothing in the actual condition of things goes to support the theory; but if we consider the capacity of the shaft and the extreme difficulty of making room for such a volume of debris, we feel dubious once more; for to hide such a quantity of earth a considerable empty space would be necessary, which could only be obtained by the disposal of more debris.  Thus we are caught in a vicious circle.  The mere packing of the powdered earth rejected behind the excavator would not account for so large a void.  The Cigale must have a special method of disposing of the waste earth.  Let us see if we can discover the secret.

Let us examine a larva at the moment of emerging from the soil.  It is almost always more or less smeared with mud, sometimes dried, sometimes moist.  The implements of excavation, the claws of the fore-feet, have their points covered by little globules of mortar; the others bear leggings of mud; the back is spotted with clay.  One is reminded of a scavenger who has been scooping up mud all day.  This condition is the more striking in that the insect comes from an absolutely dry soil.  We should expect to see it dusty; we find it muddy.

One more step, and the problem of the well is solved.  I exhume a larva which is working at its gallery of exit.  Chance postpones this piece of luck, which I cannot expect to achieve at once, since nothing on the surface guides my search.  But at last I am rewarded, and the larva is just beginning its excavation.  An inch of tunnel, free of all waste or rubbish, and at the bottom the chamber, the place of rest; so far has the work proceeded.  And the worker—­in what condition is it?  Let us see.

The larva is much paler in colour than those which I have caught as they emerged.  The large eyes in particular are whitish, cloudy, blurred, and apparently blind.  What would be the use of sight underground?  The eyes of the larvae leaving their burrows are black and shining, and evidently capable of sight.  When it issues into the sunlight the future Cigale must find, often at some distance from its burrow, a suitable twig from which to hang during its metamorphosis, so that sight is obviously of the greatest utility.  The maturity of the eyes, attained during the time of preparation before deliverance, proves that the larva, far from boring its tunnel in haste, has spent a long time labouring at it.