Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1900-07-27
Its Song Not Pleasing to Horti-
cuIturalists.

SuItusoUoN1s
Since the advent of the periodical
cicada, cicada scptemdecim, or seven
teen-year locust, recently, the public
has been treated to thrilling accounts
of how the insects are devouring every
green thing in the suburbs and work
ing such devastation as was visited on
Old Pharoah and his people in Egypt
about $500 years ago.
These pseudo o-entomologists are
long way from the truth, however, ms
the periodical cicada ceases to feed
when 1t leaves its subterrancan home
to which It was consigned In 1888 Dur
ing that tire the animal has enjoyed
itself, doubtless. as well as falls to the
lot of the ordinary, but its emergence
into the upper world, ENDS its eating. Its
subsequent life Of n few days (some
say nlne) is devoted TO love, song and
propagation. The male sings and the
female devotes her time to the deposit
of larva, which will bring up another
crop Of songsters and tree-stingers in
1917. The insects are too happy in the
settlement of their terrestrial affairs to
feel the want Of food, and, like the
dying swan, they leave the stage sing
ing, at least the male is supposed to
do so. Probably he sings to cheer his
mate while she looks after domestic
affairs, as some male song birds do.
The song of the 1T-year locust is not
exhilarating to mankind, especially
those who are horticulturalists for be-
side being rasping il, suggests destruc-
tion of the tender limbs Of trees which
the female pierces so as to make re-
sceptaclc for her larva. Some time af-
ter the puncture, the tip of the limb
falls off and by some means the larva
works it's way two feet or more be-
meath the surface of the earth. Here
il finds sustenancc and grows slowly
until it reaches about an inch in length
when 1t emerges and sheds its earthly
cerement by bursting it horizontally
along the back; dons pair of wings
and is ready for the last act in its life
drama which agriculturalists regard
as a tragedy.
Meditating on the song of the dying
swan, some rhyming wag who had en-
dured martyrdom listening to juvepilcs
taking music lesson, sang:
"Swans sing before they die.
ut were no bad thing if some people
were to die before they sing"
There may be but little poetry in
these lines, but they express the SEN
timent of most people as regards the
cicada septemdecim.
The locusts that raided Egypt were
what we call srasshoppers, species
of the same genus to which the cicada
belongs. When a cloud Of them Is
noticed approaching in Africa, the
Beers try to divcst and scatter them at
times, generally with small success,
but the Moslem folds his hands and
piously calculating, 1T is the will Of
God" begins to. mediate.
Though they are not regarded as an
article of diet by man, the bird family
find them not only n delicate, but high
Iy nutritious, tit-bit, chickens often
getting SO fat eating them that they
cannot lay. For these rural minds they
perpctuate the memory of the great
deliycrance from Egyptian bondage us
effectually as does the feast of the
passover recall the fight from Egypt
TO the Hebrew mind. There is an old
saving that IL you examine locusts'
wings you can tell the future
of the world for veal or for
VOC. for the ensuing II years.
If You find "P" the world will be at
peace, or al least comparatively so,
for that time. But IL the letter ''W"
be in the wings look out for dire calam-
tiles. Thus in 1882, the letter was "W"
and we had the Mexican war, Europe
was torn by the revolutions of 1S4S. In
iS40 the letter was "W'' and our great
Civil war followed. In 1866 the letter
was "W" and followed the Franco
Prussian war, and numerous others,
and the awful horror of the Red rising
in Paris, Tho great trouble has been
since history began that the letter