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of this species, so that it would ])e possible to accurately indicate to 

 orehardists the time when trees could be most safely planted. The 

 full distribution of many of the broods had neyer been determined 

 and he considered it yery desirable that this should l)e done. 

 . Mr. Alwood remarked that in his experience injur}^ from the 

 seventeen-year locust had frequentl}^ been quite seyere. He men- 

 tioned an instance where 400 or 500 5-year-old trees in an orchard of 

 5,000 had been so injured by the cicada that they had been pulled out. 



Mr. Marlatt spoke in behalf of the sentiment expressed by Mr. 

 Schwarz, and emphasized the fact that the periodical cicada is our 

 most interesting- insect, and thought it would be unfortunate if it 

 were exterminated. He considered that the damage occasioned by it, 

 on the whole, was slight, but that in individual instances considerable 

 injury had been done. He referred to an orchard ])clonging to Mr. 

 M. B. Waite, near Washington City, where the cicadas had come out 

 from the edge of a woods and had punctured a few of the adjacent 

 rows quite badly, so that one year's growth was lost. Properl}^ cut 

 back, no lasting injury would be sustained. 



Mr. Hopkins agreed with Mr. Schwarz as to the interest surround- 

 ing this species, and remarked in regard to the broods that he was 

 beginning to be somewhat skeptical as to the propriety of using the 

 term brood with its present significance. He thought that as the 

 knowledge of this species increased it would be found that there was a 

 great deal of intergrading, and also that representatives of so-called 

 broods were likely to appear every year, even in the same State. He 

 had evidence from West Virginia that the periodical cicada appeared 

 annually in certain localities. He thought it would be very difficult, 

 except where the intervals were marked, to designate them as distinct, 

 or to refer each to a recognized bi'ood. 



Mr. Marlatt called attention to the work of Dr. Gideon B. Smith, 

 who lived in the first half of the last century, and who had studied 

 the cicada very extensively between 1S25 and 1850, or thereabouts. 

 Dr. Smith had prepared a ver}^ important paper, which he had never 

 published. An abstract of Dr. Smith's record of broods had been 

 published in the speaker's paper on the cicada (Bulletin 14, United 

 States Division of Entomology). Dr. Smith had called attention to 

 the idea just advanced by Mr. Hopkins, namely: The fact of the 

 gradual breaking up of old broods, which in the course of time might 

 cause the cicada to appear in every cicada-brood region every year. 

 This did not mean that the seventeen-year period would be lost, but 

 that there would be such a splitting up of the broods l)y acceleration 

 and retardation that the marked periods of appearance in considerable 

 numbers would cease. 



