The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-06-26
SEVENTEEN YEAR LOCUSTS
ONOND4GA INDIINS AG1IN IN DULGING IN I FL YORITE DISH,
Which is Denominuted Upland Shrimp -Kmotty Hibernation Question on the Locusts in the Onondaga Valley.

| w liNlllOI lIIc SGNtlllGGll- veal lpSu5l (Clcada septendecim) actually hiber-
 mates in the ground for seventeen years before reappearing again in the l treetops to mangle and torture the peaceful summer air with its stridulous
 call has been a mooted question. Ere
 quently quoted authorities on the sub
 ject say it is Supposed" to do so The
 people out in Onondaga Valley say
 they know it. Seventeen years ago this
 very summer, as the memory of every
 inhabitant old enough at that time to
 remember anything doth attest, the , trees about the valley were full of the
 noisy creatures; visitors, unaccustomed
 to the noise of the locust, could not
 sleep O nights and for one happy sum-
 mer the songbrds, chickens and Onon-
 daga Indians lived like gourmands.
 Every summer at the valley has seen
 a few struggling locusts of this vari- ety. but this summer, seventeen years from their last previous appearance in
 hordes, the cicadas are present again
 by the million. The trunk of every tree
 whose bark is rough, it's bare branches NNNAA
 cry bush and shrub that lines the high
 ways and rail fences, the fences them
 selves and the walls of buildings, even
 the very glass in the meadoWs-all are
 decorated with the empty, beetle
 shaped husks from which the locusts
 have emerged, the newly reincarnated
 cicadas all in white drying their flabby
 wings, and the adult insects in black
 and green, with little red beadike, eyes, l flddling away as if the perpetuation of
 their species depended upon the noisa
 they made. Indeed, the proposition is
 not improbable, for their strident, rasp-
 ing noise the locust makes is believed 1 by many who have watched their hab-
 it's to be in the nature of d love ditty
 or the call of the insect to it's mate.
 representative of the Post Stan dard went bug hunting in the ci-
 cada district yesterday. and saw more seventeen-year locusts in two hours than an expert accountant could enum- crate in two years if he counted them in
 blocks of fifty. Along the public roads
 on both sides of the valley the empty shells from which the locusts have emerged can be seen by thousands, clinging with skeleton feet to the bark of trees and other rough objects, Fur ther south in the bottom lands of Onon- daga Reservation, they are more nu- merous. The ground is fairly honey combed with the holes which they. have | burrowed in coming to the surface. The grass of the meadows bends beneath the weight of three or four of the huge in- sects, half as large as humming bird, | clinging to each spear, and their dis | carded pupa shells form heap around the base of every tree,
 In some orchards it would be difficult | to find space big enough to lay ones hand upon the bark of any tree that had not already been appropriated by | the cicadas Farmers ploughing in the | bottom lands crunched beneath their feet at every step numbers of the pupae | that had not yet made their way to the surface. The whole underlying soil | seemed to be full of them, as well as the trees and grass above ground.
 Upon the Indian reservation children with baskets gather the pupae as they emerge from the ground In this stage, and just before transformation into the insect stage the cicadas are about one
 inch long and as large in diameter as lead pencil. They look a triile like an ochre- -colored bumblebee without wings. When they emerge from the ground they are soft and easily crushed, but the out side shell hardens after the cicada has emerged The pupae are gathered in quantities and eaten by many of the In- dians. who esteem them great deli- cacy In preparation for the table they are dropped whole into boiling grease and crisped like a doughnut in an in- stant. The reporter didn't eat any, but could see no reason in fact why they should be more repulslve than shrimps or soft shell crabs, which are recognized 
 An Indian said the Great Spirit lived on locusts and that the Indians them selves regard them as heaven-sent This possibly, may be a tra- lition of the aborigines or an idea gain ed from the Christian Indians, who have heard in Sunday school about John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey. The Indians had never eaten honey on their locust fritterS hut thought it might be good
 When the pupa of the cicada emerges rom the ground, which it usually docs 1t night, perhaps because the dew at racts it to the surface, it immediately , ooks about for something to climb, ap- bearing to have as strong proclivities n that direction as the average small 1oy. It's ambition seems to be to climb IS high as possible before it's back ;plits open, for all the world like the { eat of juvenile trousers engaged in like When the shell bursts, { limbing stops. Some of the pupae get ( Llmost to the tops of the trees, others ' ut a little way up the trunk, while $ thers still have only item to hurry half ( eay up dandeion stalk. When the cicada feels his coat begin I ing to rip he plants his front claws { rmly and resigns himself to the inevita ( e With a cut, as clean as if made I v a sharp kniufe, the entire back of g he shell splits open, and from it at ( ,ngth emerges an insect nearly twice S long as the discarded case. As 1t r caves the pupa the cicada is a creamy r ,hite, except for it's little red, bead-like t yes. Its wings are draggled and it can I crawl. But few hours in the t sun work wonderful trans I 3rrnaticn The body of the insect be- q )nles a shining bla ok, the wings become { except for ribs of bright \ reen The red eyes retain their color. { fter one hour of sunshine the ccada q ready to fly up into the tree tops and a fiddling. D