This is truly a fine family, capable by sheer force of numbers of surviving the most serious dangers.  I do not see that the adult Cigale is exposed to greater dangers than any other insect:  its eye is vigilant, its departure sudden, and its flight rapid; and it inhabits heights at which the prowling brigands of the turf are not to be feared.  The sparrow, it is true, will greedily devour it.  From time to time he will deliberately and meditatively descend upon the plane-trees from the neighbouring roof and snatch up the singer, who squeaks despairingly.  A few blows of the beak and the Cigale is cut into quarters, delicious morsels for the nestlings.  But how often does the bird return without his prey!  The Cigale, foreseeing his attack, empties its intestine in the eyes of its assailant and flies away.

But the Cigale has a far more terrible enemy than the sparrow.  This is the green grasshopper.  It is late, and the Cigales are silent.  Drowsy with light and heat, they have exhausted themselves in producing their symphonies all day long.  Night has come, and with it repose; but a repose frequently troubled.  In the thick foliage of the plane-trees there is a sudden sound like a cry of anguish, short and strident.  It is the despairing lamentation of the Cigale surprised in the silence by the grasshopper, that ardent hunter of the night, which leaps upon the Cigale, seizes it by the flank, tears it open, and devours the contents of the stomach.  After the orgy of music comes night and assassination.

I obtained an insight into this tragedy in the following manner:  I was walking up and down before my door at daybreak when something fell from the neighbouring plane-tree uttering shrill squeaks.  I ran to see what it was.  I found a green grasshopper eviscerating a struggling Cigale.  In vain did the latter squeak and gesticulate; the other never loosed its hold, but plunged its head into the entrails of the victim and removed them by little mouthfuls.

[Illustration:  1.  THE CIGALE LAYING HER EGGS.

2.  THE GREEN GRASSHOPPER, THE FALSE CIGALE OF THE NORTH, DEVOURING THE TRUE CIGALE, A DWELLER IN THE SOUTH.]

This was instructive.  The attack was delivered high up above my head, in the early morning, while the Cigale was resting; and the struggles of the unfortunate creature as it was dissected alive had resulted in the fall of assailant and assailed together.  Since then I have often been the witness of similar assassinations.

I have even seen the grasshopper, full of audacity, launch itself in pursuit of the Cigale, who fled in terror.  So the sparrow-hawk pursues the skylark in the open sky.  But the bird of prey is less ferocious than the insect; it pursues a creature smaller than itself.  The locust, on the contrary, assails a colossus, far larger and far more vigorous than its enemy; yet the result is a foregone conclusion, in spite of this disproportion.  With its powerful mandibles, like pincers of steel, the grasshopper rarely fails to eviscerate its captive, which, being weaponless, can only shriek and struggle.