24 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF 



The larvas are frequently found at a great depth, notwithstand- 

 ing its denial. Thus Mr. Henry Sadorus of Tort Byron, Illinois, who 

 built a house in 1853, found that they came up through the bottom of 

 his cellar in 1854, the cellar being over five leet deep, and Mr. F. Guy 

 of Sulphur Springs informed me that he had found them at a depth of 

 ten feet below the surface. 



When ready to transform they invariably attach themselves to 

 some object, and, alter the fly has evolved, the pupa skin is left still 

 adhering, as shown at Figure 7 b. The operation of emerging from 

 the pupa most generally takes place between the hours of G and 9 P. 

 M.; and ten minutes after the pupa skin bursts on the back the Cicada 

 will have entirely freed itself from it. Immediately after leaving the 

 pupa skin, the body is soft and white, with the exception of a black 

 patch on the prothorax. The wings are developed in less than an 

 hour, but the natural colors of the body are not acquired till several 

 hours have elapsed. These recently developed Cicadas are somewhat 

 dull for a day or so after transforming, but soon become more active, 

 both in flight and song, as their muscles harden. For those who are 

 not informed of the fact, I will state that the males alone are capa- 

 ble of "'singing," and that they are true ventriloquists, their rattling 

 noise being produced by a system of muscles in the lower part of the 

 body, which work on the drums under the wings, shown in Figure 6, 

 at##,by alternately tightening and loosening them. The general noise, 

 on approaching the infested woods, is a compromise between that of a 

 distant threshing machine and a distant frog pond. That which they 

 make when disturbed mimics a nest of young snakes or young birds 

 under similar circumstances — a sort of scream. They can also pro- 

 duce a chirp somewhat like that of a cricket's, and a very loud shrill 

 screech, prolonged for fifteen or twenty seconds, and gradually in- 

 creasing in force and then decreasing. 



After pairing, the females deposit their eggs in the twigs of differ- 

 ent trees ; and though for this purpose they seem to prefer the oaks 

 and the hickories, they oviposit in almost every kind of deciduous 

 tree, and even in herbaceous plants, and in evergreens. We have seen 

 their eggs in the Chestnut, Locust, Willow and Cottonwood, in peach 

 twigs of not more than ■£ inch diameter, and also in the stems of the 

 common Eupatorium, while R. H. Warder, of Cleves, Ohio, has found 

 them in the following evergreens : Thuja occidentalis, Juniperus vir- 

 giniana and Abies canadensis, but was unable to find any traces of 

 their work in either of our common pines — Pinus Austriaca, P. strobus 

 or P. sylvestris. 



Dr. Harris (Inj. Ins. p. 212) has well described the mode of depos- 

 iting, andit is only necessary to add that the female always saws with 

 her head upwards, i. e. towards the terminal part of the branch, ex- 

 cept when she comes in contact with a side shoot, when, instead of 



