212 HEMIl'TEliA. 



from one end to the otliei', upon wliicli she removes to a 

 Kttle distance, and begins to make another nest to contain 

 two more rows of eggs. She is about fifteen minutes in 

 preparing a single nest and filKng it with eggs ; but it is 

 not unusual for her to make fifteen or twenty fissures in the 

 same limb ; and one observer counted fifty nests extending 

 along in a line, each containing fifteen or twenty eggs in 

 two rows, and all of them apparently the work of one in- 

 sect.* After one limb is thus sufficiently stocked, the Cicada 

 goes to 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 lengtli she becomes so weak by her 

 incessant labors to provide for a succession of her kind, as 

 to falter and fall in attempting to fly, and soon dies. 



Although the Cicadas abound most upon the oak, they 

 resort occasionally to other forest-trees, and even to shrubs, 

 Avlien impelled by the necessity for depositing their eggs, and 

 not unfrequently 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 are 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 

 Avith their withered foliage to the ground. In this way 

 orcliards have sufi'ered severely in consequence of the in- 

 jurious punctures of these insects. 



The eggs are one twelfth of an inch long, and one six- 

 teenth 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 



* See also my communication in Downing's Horticulturist, Vol. III. p. 278, 

 Dec., 1848. 



