172 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



another, and passes from limb to limb and from tree to tree, till her 

 store, which consists of four or five hundred eggs, is exhausted. 

 At length she becomes so weak by her incessant labors to pro- 

 vide for a succession of her kind, as to falter and fall in attempt- 

 ing to fly, and soon dies. 



Although the Cicadas abound most upon the oak, they resort 

 occasionally to other forest-trees and even to shrubs, when im- 

 pelled by the necessity for depositing their eggs, and not unfre- 

 quently commit them to fruit-trees, when the latter are in their 

 vicinity. Indeed there seem to be no trees or shrubs that are 

 exempted from their attacks, except those of the pine and fir 

 tribes, and of these even the white cedar is sometimes invaded 

 by them. The punctured limbs languish and die soon after the 

 eggs which were placed in them are hatched ; they are broken by 

 the winds or by their own weight,- and either remain hanging by 

 the bark alone, or fall with their withered foliage to the ground. 

 In this way orchards have suffered severely in consequence of the 

 injurious punctures of these insects. 



The eggs are one twelfth of an inch long, and one sixteenth of 

 an inch through the middle, but taper at each end to an obtuse 

 point, and are of a pearl-white color. The shell is so thin and 

 delicate that the form of the included insect can be seen before 

 the egg is hatched, which occurs, according to Dr. Potter, in 

 fifty-two days after it is laid, but other persons say in fourteen 

 days. 



The young insect when it bursts the shell is one sixteenth of 

 an inch long, and is of a yellowish white color, except the eyes 

 and the claws of the fore-legs, which are reddish ; and it is covered 

 with little hairs. In form it is somewhat grub-like, being longer 

 in proportion than the parent insect, and is furnished with six legs, 

 the first pair of which are very large, shaped almost like lobster- 

 claws, and armed with strong spines beneath. On the shoulders 

 are little prominences in the place of wings ; and under the breast 

 is a long beak for suction. These little creatures when liberated 

 from the shell are very lively, and their movements are nearly as 

 quick as those of ants. After a few moments their instincts 

 prompt them to get to the ground, but in order to reach it they 

 do not descend the body of the tree, neither do they cast off 



