Twelve of them survived the journey, and as soon
as I had arrived, I carefully placed the cicadas on the boughs of
the trees in our garden in Green Street, Grosvenor Square.
Conceive the surprise of these travelled insects at finding
themselves on the soot-laden branches of a grimy London tree! The
dauntless little creatures at once recommenced their "dzig, dzig,
dzig," in their novel environment, and kept it up uninterruptedly
for twenty-four hours, in spite of the lack of appreciation of my
family, who complained that their night's rest had been seriously
interfered with by the unaccustomed noise. Next evening the
cicadas were silent. Possibly they had been choked with soot, or
had fallen a prey to London cats; but my own theory is that they
succumbed to the after-effects of a rough Channel passage, to
which, of course, they would not have been accustomed. Anyhow, for
the first time in the history of the world, the purlieus of
Grosvenor Square rang with the shrill chirping of cicadas for
twenty-four hours on end.
Six months later I regretfully bid farewell to Nyons, and went
direct from there to Germany.
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