Too Long; Didn't Read

The Common Cicada entrusts her eggs to small dry branches. All those which Réaumur examined and found to be thus tenanted were derived from the mulberry-tree: a proof that the person commissioned to collect these eggs in the Avignon district was very conservative in his methods of search. In addition to the mulberry-tree, I, on the other hand, find them on the peach, the cherry, the willow, the Japanese privet and other trees. But these are exceptions. The Cicada really favours something different. She wants, as far as possible, tiny stalks, which may be anything from the thickness of a straw to that of a lead-pencil, with a thin ring of wood and plenty of pith. So long as these conditions are fulfilled, the actual plant matters little. I should have to draw up a list of all the semiligneous flora of the district were I to try and catalogue the different supports used by the Cicada when laying her eggs. I shall content myself with naming a few of them in a note, to show the variety of sites of which she avails herself.