Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1885-06-18
The Seventeen Year LOcusts.

The Seventeen Year LOcusts.
Three strange members of the bug
family, commonly known as seventeen
year locusts,7 were picked from the
leaves of a tree in Washington Square
early yesterday morning and brought to
the Public Ledger Office. They are said
to be among the first seen in this city
for seventeen years. They are scarcely
more than half the size of the whites
bodied cicadia, which is a yearly visitor
to the park and squares, and, unlike it,
they are of reddish brown color, with
protruding red eyes.
Professor Joseph Leidy, of the Uni
versity of Pennsylvania, was shown the
insects later in the day. They were, he
said, the first he had seen for long
time, though during the morning he had
examined the boughs Of the trees at his
summer residence at Wallingford, in the
vain hope of finding some, knowing that
this was the year they was expected to
visit these parts after an absence of sew
enteen summers.
Placing one of the insects in his hand
as fearlessly as if it were fly, DIR. Leidy
told an interesting and instructive story
of its life and habits. Don't make the
very common error" he began, "of call
ing them locusts, for they are not To-
Gusts, but cicadas. All the locusts in
the world are nothing but grasshoppers,
and while grasshopers will eat every bit
of green they can get hold of, all the
eicadas in the land can't eat blade of
grass, so they are not much to be feared.
John the Baptist when he was preach
ing in the wilderness lived, we are told
on locusts and wild honey. This doesn't
mean that he fed on what are commonly
called locusts, but the meat was that of
grasshoppers, which the Digger Indians
to this day esteem luxury.
another popular error" DR.. Leidy
went on to say, sis that these cicadas do
a great deal of damage to trees, and only
recently 1 heard learned professor in
a scientific lecture tell his audience of
the ravages of these animals on the
bark of tree which he had seen from
the window of railroad car. The sew
enteen year cicadas subsist entirely un-
der the ground, on the juice which they
suck from the roots of trees, and are as
harmless as any animal that ever breath
ed. 1 have never known of a single
case of person having been stung by
cicadas, and it is an impossibility for
them to bite.
Strange to say these cicadas appear
in one Iart of the United States in one
year." said the Professor, "and in anoth-
er part the following summer, but sew
enteen years always elapse between
their visits to the same place. Only last
summer when there was not vestige
of them around the city l saw large
numbers in the neighborhood of Spring
Lake, n. ]. While the cicadas are rather
scarce here now the first warm sunshiny
day We have will bring them out in
earnest They came out of the ground,
leaving holes large enough to admit your
fingers. These 'chimneys' are often two
feet in depth, and the young cicadas as
cend and descend in them until they are
nearly mature, when they climb up
tree and throw of their larval shells.
"Then the male insects fly around for
about a fortnight, sounding their drums,
as if to call the attention of their mates
before they disappear forever. The
crop never lasts longer than two weeks.
Only the male insects are possessed Of
organs of sound perfectly developed.
These are in no way connected with the |
mouths or throat, but may be described |
as white sack nearly the size of pea,
under the body and between the thorax |
and abdomen. This drum is operated |
by means of powerful muscular move
ment.
"The female has saw-like appepdage |
with which she cuts around the thin
branch of tree, and in these crevices |
she deposits her eggs. This twig, never
more than foot long, is likely to with>
er and drop to the ground and carry the
eggs with it, Soon after they are hatch !
ed the young burrow to the juicy root of
a tree, and there remain until fully de-
yeloped, term of seventeen years. 10
case the twig does not drop off, the eggs
remain in it until they are Matched, and |
the young fall to the ground and take
the course have just spoken of. once
called on an eminent Philadelphia physi-
clan, now deceased, who during the visit
went to his firerproof safe. and took
from it the small end of the limb of a
tree. This he told me he had found one
season that the seventeen-year cicadas
had been here, and it contained the eggs
of those insects. My friend enteI tanned
the delusiOn that the eggs remained in a
quiescent state, and at the expiration of
seventeen years the dead stick would
yield crop of cicadas."
On the transparent wing covers Of
each cicada are veins which incline in
the shape of the letter wv" This in
often times was construed as the omin-
GUS initial of the word "war," and the
year in which the visitation of the sew
enteen cicadas was expected, DIR. Leidy
said, in concluding the conversation,