FOOD HABITS OF THE ADULT. 101 
dant where the land is high and well drained and the soil a rich, 
sandy loam, with a sandy or soft clay subsoil. The irregularity of 
local distribution is confirmed also by the experience of Mr. Davis on 
Staten Island, who reports of the 1894 brood that the cicadas were 
very rare in sandy districts, while in districts less sandy they appeared 
by thousands. He says also that they occurred by millions on certain 
hills and in certain bits of woodland, yet at a short distance away, 
under apparently unaltered conditions, they were very scantily 
represented. 
The local abundance of the Cicada in well-defined districts is to 
be explained by the fact, already noted, that the winged insect is 
sluggish and scatters but little from the point of emergence, which, 
with favoring circumstances, tends constantly to concentrate rather 
than to scatter the species. 
THE FOOD HABITS OF THE ADULT INSECT. 
At the time of the writing of Bulletin 14 the observations of many 
entomologists who had studied the periodical Cicada were practically 
in accord that the taking of food in the adult stage was not a neces- 
sary feature of the aerial life of the insect and was of comparatively 
rare occurrence. Feeding to a limited extent had been shown, how- 
ever, by the observations of Walsh and Riley,? and an-additional 
instance is noted by Riley in Bulletin 8.? The observations by Mr. 
Davis’ were referred to in Bulletin 14, reporting that the black 
birch and sweet gum are favorite food plants, and that it is not 
uncommon to see rows of cicadas along the branches of these trees 
with their beaks embedded in the bark. Various other entomolo- 
gists had noted a little feeding, but the opinion was general that the 
feeding habit was unusual and not necessary to the insect. State- 
ments had also been made that such feeding was limited to the 
female, and that the male could take no food inasmuch as its digestive 
organs were rudimentary. No special harm from feeding, at any 
rate, had ever been noticed, even where the insect occurred in count- 
less myriads. 
With the recurrence of Brood X in 1902 Mr. A. L. Quaintance, 
then entomologist of the Maryland experiment station, had _ his 
attention called to the feeding of the periodical Cicada and made a 
thorough study of the subject.? A correspondent called the atten- 
tion of Mr. Quaintance to the feeding of the Cicada in his orchard, 
and an examination of a local orchard confirmed this fact, which he 
afterwards noticed in various localities in Maryland. Cicadas in 
a American Entomologist, Vol. I, p. 67, 1868. 
6 Bul. 8, o. s., Div. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agric., -p. 14. 
¢ Natural Science Assn. Staten Island, 4, September, 1894, pp. 33-35. 
@d Bul. 37, n. s., Div. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agric., pp. 90-94, Pl. I. 
