THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 27 



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 

 they poisoned water. I have endeavored to trace up a number of 

 these reports, but have invariably found that they were either false 

 or greatly exaggerated, and there is no doubt whatever that the 

 great majority of such accounts owe their origin to the fertile imagin- 

 ations of newspaper reporters, who are ever ready to create a sen- 

 sation. Yet, to use a common metaphor, 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 hundreds of them, and know hundreds of per- 

 sons, including children, who have done the same, and yet have never 

 been able myself to witness a single case of bona fide stinging, 



By Hornets.— There is a very large Digger wasp {Stisus grandis, 

 Say), represented of the natural size in the accompanying Figure 12, 

 [Fig. 12.] ^ whose peculiar habit it is 



to provision its nests with 

 Cicadas. The burrows made 

 ^by this Digger wasp, or 

 > hornet, are about three feet 

 long, with two or three gal- 

 leries about one foot long, 

 each terminating in a 

 chamber considerably en- 

 larged. The female catch- 

 es a Cicada which she stings 

 and paralyzes, and 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 spe- 

 cies of Digger wasp (the Stisus 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 these species is the 

 larger annual Cicada ( C. prui?iosa, 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. 13, b) is 

 certainly capable of inflicting a wound, but the Cicada is anything 

 but pugnacious, and when not in the act of ovipositing, this instru- 

 ment is securely enclosed in its sheath. That this is the stinging in- 

 strument is rendered extremely doubtful, for the following reasons : 

 1st. All the stinging we hear of has been done suddenly, while the 



