218 NATURE SKETCHES IN TEMPERATE AMERICA 



tree trunk, to get to some elevated point from where it can 

 spring off into the air and fly slantingly down near its burrow 

 in the ground. 



The cicada-killer digs a burrow from a foot to two feet long, 

 often inclining it, and sometimes making branches. At the 

 end of the burrow and of each branch, a cell of about an inch 

 and a half in diameter is formed. Into these cells the cicada 

 is stored, to serve as food for the larva as soon as it hatches 

 from the egg. The latter is laid usually on the thorax under 

 the middle leg. The wasp may be recognized by its large size, 

 being about one and a cjuarter inches in length; and it is black 

 with the abdomen banded with yellow. 



In a beech forest, August twenty -fourth, I observed some 

 cicadids emerging from the pupa cases, and as these were quite 

 typical of this change I will describe the process. After the 

 insects issued from the ground at night, they climbed up the 

 trunk of a tree, or large twig, and turned brownish in color. 

 When up about three or five feet, this distance varying, they 

 stopped and took a firm hold on the bark with their legs. The 

 claws being large and sharp, there is no danger of slipping. 

 After a wjiile tlie body of the insect within the pupa case under- 

 went expansive movements forward, in such a way as to cause 

 the skin to burst along the back, over the head and thorax, 

 in a longitudinal direction. Then, very slowly, the exposed 

 back of the greenish adult pushed its way through the opening, 

 spreading the sides ai)art, until the pale, blue-green wings, 

 body, and finally the legs were almost withdrawn. The posi- 

 tion of the newh' escaping insect is now quite peculiar, the 

 insect often leaning out at a strong angle from the pupa case. 

 Lastly, the insect works its body loose l)y grabbing hold of 

 the bark and slowly crawling above a little distance away, 

 leaving the case behind. In one or two hours the wings become 

 sufficiently dried and iiardened, so that flight is undertaken in 

 safety. I have shown in the plate photographic illustration 

 this insect in one of the positions described. 



