MODE OF OVIPOSITION. 11 
wood, which is wider—and thus causes the eggs to be further apart— 
at the bottom of the grooves than at their commencement. The pune- 
tured twigs bear the appearance of Fig. 4, and frequently break off 
and die, though the great majority re- 
main green and recover from their 
wounds. Indeed there is every reason 
to believe that the eggs seldom hatch 
in those twigs which break off and 
become dry, but that the life and 
moisture of the twig are essential to 
the life and deveiopment of the egg, 
for the eggs are noticeably larger just 
before hatching than when first de- 
posited, showing that they are, to a 
certain extent, nourished by endosmo- 
sis of the juices of the living wood. 
Mr. Rathvon has also recorded the 
fact that the Cicada eggs are always 
shriveled in twigs that are amputated \ 
by the Oak-pruner (Stenocorus villosus, Fic. 4.—Twig pune- Fic. 5.—Twig healed 
. tured by the Seven- after the puncture 
Fabr.). In the healing of the punc- __ teen-year Cicada. of the Seventeen- 
tured parts a knot usually forms over So eis: 
each puncture, and I represent at Fig. 5 a portion of an apple twig, sent 
to me by Mr. John P. McCartney, of Cameron, Clinton County, Mo., and 
which was punctured in the year 1862. Though the wounds had so well . 
healed on the outside, the grooves inside were not filled up, but still 
contained the minute, glistening egg-shells, from which the young larve 
had escaped six years before. 
The eggs hatch between the 20th of July and the 1st of August, or in 
about six weeks after being deposited. 
The newly-hatched larva (Fig. 6) dif- 
fers considerably from the full-grown 
larva, but principally in having much 
longer and distinctly 8-jointed anten- 
ne.* It is quite active, and moves its 
antenn® as dexterously and as rapidly 7% f[Serpntcen sent ica 
as does an ant. As soon as it has ex- 
tricated itself from an exceedingly fine membrane (the amnion), which 
still envelons it after it has left the egg,t our little Cicada drops delib- 
erately to the ground; its specific gravity being so insignificant that it 
falls through the air as gently and as softly as does a feather. 
*There is frequently a ninth joint partly developed. 
+ Most insects having incomplete metamorphoses are enveloped in a like mtmbrane 
after leaving the egg, and until this is thrown off the young insect is awkward in its 
motions. In the case of the young Cicada, these fine membranes are usually left 
attached to the roughened orifice of their nidus, and thus form, together, a white, 
glistening bunch. 
