The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-21

Prof Riley Corrects Some MISREPRESENTATION
Concerning Their Peculiarities.

Prof Riley Corrects Some NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
Concerning Their Peculiarities.
Washington Special.
Professor Riley of the Agricultural Depart
ment, who is SO well acquainted with the period
zeal 'cicada," or seventeen-year locust, that he
eats them for breakfast, has written an inter
esting pamphlet concerning them. In this he
Gays:
1.-THE season of their appearance and disap-
pearance differs somewhat with the latitude,
though not so materially as one might suppose
According TO the records they appeared in 1868
earlier in the South than in the North; but the
last half of May can be set down as the period
during which they emerge from the ground in
any part of the country, while they generally
leave by the 4th of July In st. Louis county,
Missouri in 1873. they commenced issuing on
the 22d of May. and By the 2Sth of tho same
month the woods resounded with the rafting
eoncourse of the perfect insect AS is the case
with great many other insects, the males
make their appearance several days before the
females, and also disappear sooner. Hence, in
the latter part of the cicada season. though the
woods are still full of females, the song of but
very few males viii be heard.
1T is astonishing what widespread fear
exists of the cicada on account of its supposed
singing power. There is scarcely a paper in
the United States but published some account of
the locust sting in 1868, while unpublished ac
counts were equally numerous. Some persons
even denied themselves the pleasure OF eating
biackberries raspberries and other fruits be-
Cause they feared these fruits had been poisoned
by the eggs of cicad9, while others believed that
the insects poisoned water. / have endeavored
to trace number of these reports. but have in
vsriably found that they were either false or
greatly exaggerated, and there Is no doubt what
ever that the great majority of such accounts
owe their origin to the fertile imaginations of
newspaper reporters who ever ready for the
sensational At the same time give it as nay
conviction that there is but little cause for fear,
rs have handled thousands of them and know
hundreds of persons, including children, who
have done the same, and yet have never been
able to witness single case of bona ide singing
by the cicada."
Speaking Of their injury to the fruit trees.
Prof. Riley says: an the perfect state the fe-
male is capable Of doing great injury to trees by
hacking up their twigs, in the process or ovipos-
iting. aud although their injury in the forest is
not generally felt il is very different thing in
orr orchards, and especially in the nursery"
Summing up the distribution of the periodical
cicada (both seventeen and thirteen-year races
within the United States, ''rhe cicada is known
10 occur in all the States east of the plains, ex-
cepting the northern portion of New England
and northern Michigan, and the whole OF Mime
sofa. 1t thus appears that this cicada does not
breed in those northern States or portions there
OF, in which the woods are composed more or less
exclusively of pine-trees or other conf
fers. Rhode Island possesses broods
SO far rs we know, but this may
be due to want of proper records,
as several broods reach close to the borders of
that State. Neither does the species occur in
the peninsula of Florida, for reasons either Of a
climatic or geologic nature Our knowledge Of
the Western extent has increased since 1868, and
several broods can now be traced as far West as
eastern Montana and Wyoming, central Colo
RADIO and the extreme western parts OF Texas
while less reliable evidence even indicates that
the species may occur in western Montana
among streams emptying into the Pacific ocean.
During the next seventeen years there will
occur broods of the periodical cicada somewhere
or other in the United States in the following
years: 1886 1885, 1883, 1889, 1891, 1893, 1894,
1895, 1896, 1897 1893. 1899, 1900 1901. Thus
every year except 1887, 1890 and 1892 viii, dur
ing the next seventeen years, be somewhere a
cieada year; and it will he noticed that the thir
teen-year broods invariably concur with some
seventeen-year brood, fact which is worthy of
note, and which leads to interesting speculation
as to the origin of the former"