140 THE PERIODICAL CICADA, 
It is well established, however, that both males and females are 
affected by this disease, the former, however, in the greatest num- 
bers, and that it is by no means confined to injured individuals. 
Professor Peck describes this disease in general terms as follows: 
The fungus develops itself in the abdomen of the insect, and consists almost wholly 
of a mass of pale-yellowish or clay-colored spores, which to the naked eye has the 
appearance of a lump of whitish clay. The insects attacked by it become sluggish 
and averse to flight, so that they can easily be taken by hand. After a time some of 
the posterior rings of the abdomen fall away, revealing the fungus within. Strange as 
it may seem, the insect may, and sometimes does, live for a time in this condition. 
Though it is not killed at once, it is manifestly incapacitated for propagation, and 
therefore the fungus may be said to prevent to some extent the injury that would 
otherwise be done to the trees by these insects in the deposition of their eggs. For 
the same reason, the insects of the next generation must be less numerous than they 
otherwise would be, so that the fungus may be regarded as a beneficial one. In 
Columbia County the disease prevailed to a considerable extent. Along the line of 
the railroad between Catskill and Livingston stations many dead cicadas were found, 
not a few of which were filled by the fungoid mass.4@ 
Professor Peck was not able to satisfy himself as to the time when 
the Cicada is attacked by this fungus, suggesting the possibility of its 
having entered the ground with the larva and slowly developed with 
its host, or perhaps entering the body of the pupa at the moment that 
it emerges from the ground, with the third possibility of its developing 
annually in the cicadas which appear every year, and becoming much 
more abundant, and therefore noticeable, in the years of the appear- 
ance of the great swarms of periodical cicadas. The latter supposi- 
tion is unquestionably the correct explanation. Mr. A. W. Butler 
refers to this disease at some length in his notes on the Cicada in 
southern Indiana in 1885, and is of the opinion that nearly all of the 
male cicadas which are not killed by birds and other enemies ulti- 
mately succumb to this disease. 
REMEDIES AND PREVENTIVES. 
THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE PROBLEM, 
In discussing this subject it is well to be again reminded that the 
fears aroused by the presence of this insect when in great numbers are 
unquestionably out of all proportion to the real damage likely to be 
done. While they are most abundant in old and undisturbed forest 
tracts and confine their work for the most part to forest trees, it is true 
also that in parks and lawns, especially such as contain trees of the 
original forest growth or their natural and immediate successors, the 
cicadas sometimes appear in scarcely diminished numbers. This is 
true also of orchards located on cleared lands or in the vicinity of 
standing forests, and under such circumstances instances of serious or 
fatal results to cherished plants or fruit trees are not uncommon. 
2 Loc. cit., pp. 19,20. 
