SUMMER MEETING AT BROOKFIELD. 157 



conditions that await them. Late in May or early in Jnne the agile 

 pupae pierce the ground and emerge into the light and air. 



Prof. Riley, who has given much study to this insect, says : " The 

 unanimity with which all those which rise within a certain radius of a 

 given tree crawl in a bee-line to the trunk of that tree is most interest- 

 ing. To witness these pupae in such vast numbers that one cannot 

 step on the ground without crushing several, swarming out of their 

 subterranean holes and scrambling over the ground, all converging to 

 the one central point, and then in a steady stream clambering up the 

 trunk and diverging again on the branches, is an experience not readily 

 forgotten, and affording good food for speculation on the nature of 

 instinct." 



Very shortly after the pupae have fixed themselves, the skin splits 

 on the back and the perfect cicada begins to struggle into the air, and 

 after many efforts finally frees itself and clings with its weak legs to a 

 leaf or twig until its wings inflate and assume the color and position of 

 maturity. The body and wings are at first creamy white, with, black 

 dashes on thorax and legs, and the large round eyes are coral red. To 

 quote another sentence from Prof. Riley : "There are few more beau- 

 tiful sights than to see this fresh-forming cicada in all the different 

 positions, clinging and clustering to the lower leaves and branches of 

 a tree. In moonlight such a tree looks for all the world as though it 

 were full of beautiful white blossoms in various stages of expansion." 

 A few days after such a scene the air will be stirred with low whir- 

 rings, and presently throughout the country, from forest and orchard 

 and shaded lawn, will resound the shrill screech or long-drawn, mellow 

 Pha-a-a-a-aho, into which name the imaginative old Puritans translated 

 the sound, supposing these insects to be "locusts," and that they thus 

 commemorated the obdurate Egyptian king whom they were first sent 

 to plague. 



When the performers are very numerous the chorus becomes 

 almost unendurable — much like that of a higher-pitched and thousand 

 times multiplied frog-pond. Fortunately they do not " perform " at 

 night, and the relief and sense of silence that prevails when their music 

 ceases is quite indescribable. 



They are noisiest during the first three weeks after acquiring their 

 wings. Subsequently their drumming becomes intermittefit and less 

 obtrusive, and in the course of four or five weeks, the females having* 

 meantime consigned their eggs to the twigs of the trees in which they 

 made their brief aerial home, they fall victims to birds and other enemies 

 or perish from disease, and again for long years disappear from the 

 surface of the earth. 



