Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-06-02
THE CICADAS.
False Conception That They Are the
Loeusts Of the Plague of Egypt-Huw
They Burrow and Rise.

They Burrow and Rise.
F,om tie PbiladelDbia Press.
Nearly seventeen years ago, that is TO
say about midsummer, 1868, the Cicada
family, of Germantown, went en- retralte.
They were fatherless and mOtherless; they
We're but few days old; they were sew
eral millions in number. They tumbled
of the trees, and such as did not fall
down the necks Of the Germantown school
girls Of that date, who are now middle
aged matrons, old maids or causes of
broken shafts and eulogistic epitaphs in
/ Germantown cemeteries, burrowed in
/ Germantown soil for a season Of with
! drawal from the world halt a human gen
Grafton in length.
The Cicada family emerged on May %,
as their ancestors have every seventeenth
! 18th Of May since 1884. Their seclusiOn
began just at the close of the great French
/ Exposition of the Empire. They lost the
/ Centennial, the second French EXPOSE
tiOn, ana the New Orleans Exposition Of
| incapacitY NapOleOn's Empire has gone
! down i'm their absence, the public build
! ings under Emperor Perkins have come
! up. The Cicada family now find the Demo-
! cratic party IN power i'm State and nation,
"a contingency that seemed most imprOba-
! bic when Grant was first in political har-
ness running his One-sided race with the
sage of Utica. The Cicada family find
many other changes, but the popular mis-
conception that they are lOcusts, the
plaques of Holy Writ, is as firmly fixed
as ever.
DIR. MCOOK ON TIE LOCUSTS.
"The seveuteen-year cIcada are rs much
like the locust proper" said the Rev. DR..
Henry G. McCOOk, ''as a horse is like a
cow" and, quoting from his popular ehl-
cidation Of the principles Of entomology,
tenants of an old Farm" the naturalist
went ON: "There are few entomOl0gists
who have not often been compelled to eX-
plain the wide and fundamental difference
between the so-called 'locusts' of the Uni
ted States and the true l0custs' of the
Holy Scripture and our far West. The
latter really do often 'eat every tree which
grOwoth for you out Of the field as they
did in the days of the plaques of Egypt;
while the former, having no jaws to eat
with, and only beak to suck sap. are
physically incapable of eating anythng
at ALL"
The true locust, who devastates the
crops and whose coming is heralded from
the West by as much Associated Press
space as might be accorded to Il Presiden-
| tial progress, masQuerades under the
name Of the apparently harmless. foolish,
cheerful idiot. the "grasshOpper" who is
one and the same Individual as he who
bothered the head hugOlOgst OF the Pha-
raobs some thousands of years ago. and
was by him dignitied into a ''plague." In
the chatty treatise quoted above DR.. Me
Cook puts science into rural vernacular,
and through the mouth OF Hugh Bond,
the manager Of HighwOOd farm, defines
the Cicada family as follows:
"As 10 them lOc--beg y'r pardon. them
haryesthies-bein' destructive creeters.
| never jes' see it at all. Some folks alters
MAKE a powerful fuss over 'em Wen they
come, and talk about devOurin' up every
green thing. and so forth. But my expe-
Renee is that their bark's wuss'n their
bite. Now, | never seed any leaves or
other green things eat up by lOcusis NV
that sort They does cut of a power %
young shoots an SIGH, an sometimes,
Wen they lights on young fruit tree or
sapling, they kills it. But it don't do
much harm in ordinar' fur to trim off the
outer twigS NV trees. The trees make
wood agin, an er not much the worse fur
wear. Theirs nation sight o. buzZin'
an, ez Mr.. Mayfield says. the woods does
have sort o ragtag look. but it's more
in sight am SCUM than in solid harm, I'm
a-thinkin'. In fac, theirs a good ZEAL
more noise IN execution in an army of
harvest flies, ies like an ole-fashiOned mi
lltla trainln' sham battle"
Even for the "ragtag' appearance of
the trees the cicada or harvest fly's appe-
lite Is not responsible When the mis-
named insects emerge from their seven
teen years solitude in the soil they burst
1 their shells and leave them sticking I'M
/ pleasantly on the tree bark. Then Sir
| Romeo Cicada finds his guitar. 1t is hid
under bis wings, and the strum-
ming Of it IS his amorous
serenade to Miss Juliet Cicada.
| The affair goes well. Cicada Capuet be-
comes Mrs. Ccada Montague, and for a
| cradle of the little Cicada MOntagues,
! then in ORC, she makes slit in twig.
| This incision of the twig is that which
/ sometimes kills it. When the cradle is
| made and the Cicada children put TO bed
| their mother dies. She has lived
seventeen years alone underground.
a very clustered nun. Then she
comes 10 woman's estate, Hnd six weeks
of welded existence does for her and
/ her spouse. Their offspring. first relieved
/ from their shells, drop TO the ground, bur-
/ row there for their generation. living
I meantime on the sap which their long
bills suck from the roots Of trees and
| grasses and then rise They rise sud
/ denly, too. THO years ago their resurrec-
ZION was due in East Liberty. fashion
| able suburb Of pittsburg. When they
/
| large portion of them disappeared was
clear. When they emerged in 1883 it WAS
! temporarily occupied by n considerable
segment OF the fashion and wealth OF the
/ smoky City, which was attuning its soul
to the harmOnies Of an Open-air promenade
concert. The Cicada family did not stand
upon the order Of their coming, but came
20 once, and such was the panic caused
M trOuser less and dress skirts by their
appearance that the promenade feature OF
the concert was intensified by the hurried
| retreat OF It's auditors.
THE GERMANrowN RECORD.
The temperance of the Germantown
| Ciradas has been remarkable for its regu-
hriry. ca May %. 1877. the then genera.
zion was first noticed; ON May %. 1884
their successors appeared; again ON that
date M 1851 came their grandchildren,
AVID their greai-grandchildren on May %.
! lsjS. u was iu 1910 that these insects
were first noticed in Eastern Pennsyl.
! }bnia. The record did not keep tor the
twu succeeding generations, but the third
/ apneared according 20 expectation In
lsC6. IN 1883 ana 1900 the ccnealogy Of
those Cicadas WAS kept uubrukca. thus
! linking 10 % the Germantown records.
! The Western Ptunsy lvauia Cicadas are
recorded as appearing in 1882 aud again
/ in 1888. The period between these dates
/ .F q