Note 7 — Chapter V · THE CICADA: THE LAYING AND THE HATCHING OF THE EGGS

Very often, while the Cicada is absorbed in her work of motherhood, an infinitesimal Gnat, herself the bearer of a boring-tool, labours to exterminate the eggs as fast as they are placed. Réaumur knew her. In nearly every bit of stick that he examined he found her grub, which caused him to make a mistake at the beginning of his researches. But he did not see, he could not see the impudent ravager at work. It is a Chalcidid some four to five millimetres7 in length, all black, with knotty antennæ, thickening a little towards their tips. The unsheathed boring-tool is planted in the under part of the abdomen, near the middle, and sticks out at right angles to the body, as in the case of the Leucospes,8 the scourge of certain members of the Bee-tribe. Having neglected to capture the insect, I do not know what name the nomenclators have bestowed upon it, if indeed the dwarf that exterminates Cicadæ has been catalogued at all.