Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1919-06-12
Life History of the Locust.

NOW that the seventeen year LOCUST!
have emerged from their long sleeI
and are making shrill music in those
localities where they have appeared
some facts concerning this insect
which is not really the locust, but the
cicada, may be Of interest.
The life cycle of the periodical
cicada extends over a period of II
years in this section Of West Virginia
Stated briefly, the II years is passed
as follows: The eggs are deposited ir
the twigs and smaller branches of trees
and shrubs about the second or third
week in June, each female depoSiting
from 400 to 600 eggs. These eggs
hatch in six or seven weeks, and the
young cicadas drop to the ground
where they burrow out of sight. Here
they remain underground at depth
Of six inches to two feet as rule, until
ready to emerge, II years later. Dur
ing this time they feed by sucking
sap from roots. Late in May OF the
seventeen year the cicada pupa
emerges from the ground and crawlS up
a tree or any convenient object. The
pupal shell then splits open and the
winged adult appears. This emergence
takes place usually late in the after
noon or at night. After mating, egg
deposition is begun and the cycle is
complete.
Many people are needlessly alarmed
by this insect. II is not poisonous, will
not bite nor sting, and may be handled
without fear. Nor does it feed to any
great extent in the adult age. Injury
from the cicada is due almost entirely
to the egg laying habit of the female.
The entomologists assert that the
cicadas do little or no harm to growing
things except young trees. These may
be more or less damaged by the splitting
of the bark on young limbs and twigs
when the adult female cicada punctures
it in depositing her eggs. The eggs,
Matching under the tender bark, cause
it to swell and split still more, until
the tiny grub emerges from the wound,
drops to the ground and burrows far
down, to see the light no more until
it comes up seventeen years hence.
Old trees are not injured in the least
by the insects. Neither do the cicadas
devour other growing things. In fact,
they eat very little of anything. Their
adult life is spent mostly in the tree
tops, where they put in the hot days
summing themselves and getting ready
for the brood that is to come seventeen
years from now. The males keep UP
an almost ceaseless rubbing of the
hard outer edges of their wing covers
against a tiny hard membraneous sort
of tympanum, which causes the end
less drowsy droning hum that fills the
air for a few weeks during every To-
Gust year.
The cicada is practically unknown in
the plain States and west Of the Rocky
mountains. Broods have been definite
ly located in all parts of the east and
south, east Of the Mississippi river, and
scientists know exactly when these will
emerge from the ground for a brief
season as adults in the sunshine and
open air. In parts of Tennessee and
Alabama this year the seventeen-year
and thirteen-year broods overlap, so
that those sections have the two broods
this year.
No means has been found of COM
batting the cicada swarms, for the rea-
son that the larva, dropping from the
trees, burrows at once deep into the
earth to spend its years of develop
ment. The larvae, or grubs, have been
found as deep as twenty-five feet,
scientists say. Anyhow, the fact that
the insects do no harm except to young
trees, the scientists assert, removes
them from the list of dangerous pests
against which relentless warfare mus,
be waged. Therefore no serious effort
has been made to find ways of EXTERN
mating them by wholesale.