The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1902-05-09
LOCUST INVASION NEXT.
Insects Expected Late This
Month or Early in June
Advance Guard Al
ready Here.


between the sunlight and the soil.
Those OF the deepest bug lore con
tidently expect the invaders late
this month or early in June. \
few early riSerS may come up
sooner to see what the open worlds
looks like. DR.. Z. II. Uhler, the
provost of the Peabody Institute.
is the chief prophet Of the insects
in Baltimore. Interviews with
him and with prominent Johns
Hopkins biologist, when com
pounded, read somewhat as fol
lows:
In the first place, he is not "a
locust at all He isn't a member
Of the family that kept old Pha
raoh in a funk for fear of his crops,
uor leu one of the tribe whose
millions strip the green from great
tracts of Western land and stop
trains by masSing on the rails.
Those are real locust They
enjoy boarding house appetites,
and have long and strong legs to
carry them in leaps from meal to
meal. Our own grdsshoppers are
their first cousins.
The '17-year locust ought to
be called the '17,year cicada.'
He is not a graSShopper at all.
The squash bug is his second
cousin. He commences as fat
grub and finishes as a big fly.
You know one of his step brothers,
in the fly stage, as the fellow who
holds to a tree branch and sings
to his sweetheart. There's a To-
Gust is what everybody says when
he hears the racket he makes.
He does it with a drum.
Every cicada is his own drum
corps. He has a membrane
stretched across his chest, and he
bangs on it with a little stick
worked from the inside by tiny
muscles. Only the gentleman
cicada carries drum. 1t is
enough for the ladies to hear its
music. At the bare thought of it,
a poet Of old Rome sang this visit
full strain:
o happy the cicadae's YES
Because they all have silent wives.
"Here is the story of the II.
year cicada's life: y lady fly
lays him carefully into the twig
of tree, as an egg. To do so she
must stab and kill the twig. 1t
falls to the ground, and there a
grub is hatched. Like every new
baby, he is hungry enough to cry.
But bugs don't cry. He has no
nurses to feed him and keep HIM
warm, so to feed himself and keep
from catching cold he burrows in
to the warm ground. There lie
attaches himself by a muscular
tube TO the root of the tree upon
which his frivolous mother left
him. And there he stays snugly
for Il years. Why he stays so
long is because he does. When
he finally bursts ont of the ground,
as he is now about TO do, he is
fine, fat and wormy. stubby, pop
eyed, big jawed and clumsy leg
ged.
CHE has been sucking with all
his might for II years-he is the
most persistent sucker on record.
Therefore, he is glad to get up in
the world. and wants to go as
high as possible. Accordingly,
he era Wis to the nearest tree and
drags himself up. His pride has
swollen and climbing tires him.
He rests. To do so he spreads out
his clumsy legs and grabs the tree
bark tightly on both sides. The
procedure rips him up the back.
Out of the slit in his skin he comes,
limp, weak and helpless. But
now he has wings, and they soon
dry. Then he flies away in high
glee, and doesn't care what hap
pens to his old skin. He is the
real thing at last.
They do no great harm. Most
observers declare that they eat
nothing from the time they come
into their wings until they fall
and die. There lease is so short
that they probably haven't time
TO get hungry.
"Ours is the only cicada that
stays in the ground anything like
II years. 1t goes to prove the
superiority of the American soil as
a place of residence"
DR.. Uhler's collection embraces
thousands of different cicadae,
but none other OF them has
longer term than two or three
years. baltimore NeuS.
A Deep Mystery.