HEMIPTERA: CICADARI^:. 437 



not even belong to the same sub-order as the Locust. It 

 is believed that this insect appears in the same locality 

 only at intervals of seventeen years, and hence its spe- 

 cific name. It makes its appearance in the early part of 

 summer. Sometimes the cicadas of this species come in 

 such immense swarms as to bend, and even break, the 

 limbs of the forest upon which they alight, and the woods 

 are filled from morning till night with the noise of their 

 rattling drums. After pairing, the females proceed to 

 lay their eggs, which they accomplish as follows: they 

 select small branches, which they clasp with their legs, 

 and then repeatedly thrust their piercer obliquely into 

 the bark and wood in the direction of the fibres, and at 

 the same time, by means of their lateral saws, they de- 

 tach little splinters of the wood at one end, which serve 

 as a fibrous cover to the perforations. By repeated 

 thrusts they form a longitudinal fissure capable of hold- 

 ing from ten to twenty eggs, which are conveyed into 

 the nest by means of the grooved side-pieces of the 

 piercer, and deposited in pairs, but separated from each 

 other by woody fibre, and placed so that one end points 

 upward. When one fissure is filled, the insect makes 

 another close by on the same limb ; and when one limb 

 is sufficiently stocked with eggs, she takes another, and 

 thus continues till her store of eggs, consisting of four or 

 five hundred, is laid. Soon afterwards she dies. The 

 eggs are one twelfth of an inch long, pearly white, and 

 hatch in fourteen, forty-two, or fifty-two days, author- 

 ities differing in regard to the number. Soon after they 

 are hatched the young fall to the ground, where they 

 immediately bury themselves, burrowing by means of 

 their broad, strong fore-feet, which are perfectly adapted 

 for digging. They follow the roots of plants, upon whose 

 juices they feed. They continue this sort of life till their 

 time of transformation approaches, when they gradually 



