ee 
+ 
ITS SUPPOSED STINGING POWER. 1s 
of the Saint Louis Republican was kind enough to clip out for me all 
accounts of such stings which he found in its numerous exchanges, 
and the number which had accumulated before the end of the “locust” 
season was truly surprising. Some people even denied themselves the 
pleasure of eating blackberries, raspberries, and other fruits, because 
they feared these fruits had been poisoned by the eggs of Cicadas, while 
others believed that the insects poisoned water. I have endeavored to 
trace a number of these reports, but have invariably found that they 
were either false or greatly exaggerated, and there is no doubt what- 
ever that the great majority of such accounts owe their origin te the 
fertile imaginations of newspaper reporters, who are ever ready for the 
sensational. Yet, as the saying goes, it is strange there should be 
so much smoke and no fire, and I will briefly review the only three 
methods by which such stinging can possibly be produced. At the 
same time I give it as my conviction that there is but little cause for 
fear, as I have handled thousands of them, and know hundreds of per- 
sons, including children, who have done the same, and yet have never 
been able to witness a single case of bona fide stinging by the Cicada. 
By HORNETS.—There is a very large digger-wasp (Stizus grandis, 
Say), the habit of which is to provision its nests with Cicadas. The 
burrows made by this digger-wasp, or hornet, are about 3 feet long, 
with two or three galleries about 1 foot long. each terminating 
in a chamber considerably enlarged. The female catches a Cicada; 
which she stings and paralyzes, aud drags into one of these chambers ; 
and it is not very unlikely that she should occasionally alight on some 
human being with a Cicada in her grasp, and upon being brushed off, 
should retaliate by stinging the offender, and then fly off, leaving the 
Cicada behind, which, in absence of the hornet, would very naturally 
be accused of the sting. An allied species of digger-wasp (the Stizus 
speciosus of Say)* has been actually observed by Mr. Rathvon to carry 
off a few belated individuals of the Periodical Cicada; but the usual 
prey of both of these species is the larger annual Cicada (C. pruinosa 
Say), and they both occur too late in the season to be the cause of all 
the stinging we hear of. 
BY THE OVIPOSITOR.—The ovipositor of the female (Fig. 8, 5) is 
certainly capable of inflicting a wound, but the Cicada is anything but 
pugnacious, and when not in the act of ovipositing, this instrument is 
securely inclosed in its sheath. That this is the stinging instrument 
is rendered extremely doubtful, for the following reasons: (1) All the 
stinging we hear of has been done suddenly, while the insertion of the 
ovipositor would necessarily be a gradual operation, requiring at least 
one minute; (2) the real function of the ovipositor is to convey an egg 
*'These wasps are now referred to the genus Sphecius Dablb, and both grandis Say 
and speciosus Say ranked as one species, the former sinking to a varietal name of the 
latter, which has priority. (See W. H. Patton on ‘‘The Am, Bembecide: Tribe Sti- 
zini,” Hayden’s U.S. Geol. and Geogr. Survey, Bull. V, 1879, pp. 341-347. ) 
