The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-06-22

woods ring OF them, and ready to deaf
the hearer; there were not any of
them heard or seen by the English IN
the Country before this time: But the
Indiass told them the sickness would
follow. and so 1t did. very hot in the
months Of juno, July and August Of
that Summer viz. 1868 $500. He
says. Toward Winter the Sickness
pestilent Feaver.'"
Accurate records of this brood In
New England are available from 1887
to 1906 and they are due to appear
again in 1923 in numbers almost I'M
Diminished from those of the earliest
recorded years. probably due to the
fact that much of the wooded land
about Plymouth" has been allowed to
remain as 1t was.
The sickness alluded to by Moreton
was probably purely coincidental.
Likewise the sickness attributed by
the Indians to the cicada year is be-
lieved to have been merely the work
upon their lmaginations OF the amaz-
ing temperance and rise OF the
plague in the woods at Regular inter-
walls separated by a time long enough
to enable the growth of a tradition
Locusts. Eaten in the south.
A brood is mentioned by Thomas
,, Matthews as present in Virginia in
1875 and the Rev. Andreas Sandel in
his journal tells of a brood at Radnor
Pa. in lbs. After the usual descrip-
ton and the remark that their noise
made the cow bells inaudible In the
! wood" the Rev. Sandel proceeds to
state apparently for the first time the
real reason for the locusts' damage.
He says:
They were also destructive, making
Sits In the bark of trees. where they
deposited their worms. which with
| cred the branches"
Then he opens another interesting
field in the cicada discussion. He adds:
Swine and poultry ate them; but
what was more astonishing when they
| first appeared some of the people split
them open and ate them, holding them
to be of the same kind as those to
have been eaten by John the Baptist.
These locusts lasted not longer than
up to June 10. and disappeared in the
woods"
This edibility of the locust and Of
the cicada septendecim is more than
a tradition. The negroes, and indeed
some Of the white people of the South.
frequently esteem them highly as a
delicacy. The early colonists probably
| called them '1ocusts" because they
confused them. as did the John the Bap-
tist Pennsylvanians, with the mlgra-
tory grasshoppers of the Orient which
have been an item of food for time out
of mind: and the negroes probably
brought their taste for them from the
same quarter of the globe. The locust
proper OF Africa and Madagascar is a
great delicacy there even in this day
OF manufactures over uncivilized peo-
pies. The Rocky Mountain grasshop-
per was also eaten by the American
Indians.
DIR. Towards Experiment.
| But II remained for Drs. Howard and
Riley. among the FIRST scientists to
collate seriously the information on
the clcada and his appearances. to
test out his edibility in 1885. Says
DIR. Howard:
4 win tne d1u OF tne doctor
(Riley's) cook he had prepared a plain
stew. a thick milk stew and a broil.
The cicade were collected Just as they
emerged from pupe and were thrown
into cold water. in which they re-
NAMED overnight. They were. cooked
the next morning and served at break
fast time. They impaired a distinct
and not unpleasant flavor TO the stew
but were not at all palatable them
I selves. as they were reduced to moth
ing but bits OF fiabby skin. The broil
lacked substance. The most palatable
method Of cooking is to fry in batter
when they remind one OF shrimps.
They will never prove p delicacy."
| A Mr.. T. A. Kelleher, who sampled