Western sentinel. [volume] (Winston [i.e. Winston-Salem], N.C.) 1856-1886, 1885-07-09
THE LOCUST.
A Scientific Analysis of the New and
aesthetic Article of Diet.
From, the Ne,s York World.

aesthetic AftIclo OF D1oC.
From the New York World.
The cicada, commonly miscalled
the "seventesn-year locust" is again
oh hand and will at once proceed to
draw forth the exhaustive and ex-
hausting essay Of the scientist and ter
rify the brave and intelligent city
girl while she visits her country cous-
ms. In this country the locust proper
is generally known by the less enpho-
nious name of grasshopper, with which
degenerate glutton the cicada has but
little in common. Both are vegetari-
ans and that is about the only point
of resemblance. The alimentary canal
of the grasshopper is abnormally de-
veloped and he has gizzard enough
for an ostrich. His capacity for eat
ing nearly everything in the vegetable
kingdom is only exceeded by his APP
petite and his industry. About the
only thing which discourages a grass
hopper is a hard frost or a cactus.
The cicada, on the other hand, is
more exquisite and much less destruct-
i've. He does not MUNICH and grind
everything up as the grasshopper docs.
Nature has provided the cicada with
an apparatus fer boring or piercing
the bark of trees and the skin of
plants, and for extracting the sap of
the one and the juice of the other.
A great deal of poetic moonshine
was woven about the cicada by the
ancients. They went into harmless
state of lunacy over the shrill noise
which it makes, and eignified the
same by calling it "the singing of the
cicada." They wasted a vast amount
of time in trying to invent terms in
praise of the so-called song, and were
more devoted to this screeching sap
sucker than most men are to their
wives.
Just how this singing" is done is a
point upon which naturalists are not
entirely agreed. Under the anterior
part Of the abdomen and on each side
of the same region is a contrivance
which some bugologists call the organ
of sound. Others maintain that the
cicada rubs its hind legs against the
veins inside of the wing covers, after
the manner of the grasshopper; the
veins of the wing covers protrude con-
siderably and the edges of the hind
leg are rugged and uneven like the
teeth of a buzz-saw. Rasping the two
together produces peculiar metallic
sound which seems to be augmented
by means of the abdominal arrange
ment already mentioned. One writer
says that the. process is like the play
ing of violin and that the walls of
the abdomen serve as sounding
board.
When they move in great clouds,
as they do in tropical countries, the
whizzing and whirring of their wings
is as deafening as the voice of a full
grown Dakota blizzard, whichit great
ly resembles.
Gordon Cumming found the cicada
better eating than some other kinds
of food which he encountered in Afri-
ca, and now that Prof. Riley, OF
Washington, proneunces them SO
toothsome the future Of this beautiful
insect is somewhat insecure. The long
interval between its visits, however,
lessons the danger of its completely
routing the oyster, and then, too, be-
fore it comes around again it may be
demonstrated that the plump and
juicy cockroach and potato-bug are
even more palatable aud delicious
than the cicada.