128 PEKIODICAL CICADA. 



tions of itB history. The only instance that I know of, in the history 

 of insects, at all resembling it, is the lapping of the honey of flowers 

 by some of the Ilymenoptera. 



As Dr. Smith is the only one who has recorded any observations up- 

 on the larval history of these insects, I will extract a few additional 

 items of interest from his account, more especially as his observations 

 are not published in any work of ordinary reference. He says that 

 they occupy oblong cells in the earth, from one to three inches in length, 

 in which the insect freely moves. When the food to which this cell 

 gives access is exhausted, the insect moves gradually into fresh earth 

 by digging from one end of its cell and throwing the loose earth back 

 into the other end. The depth to which they usually penetrate into the 

 earth has not been eatisfactorily determined. One of my correspond- 

 ents who plowed up large numbers of them in the spring, found that he 

 could trace their holes down about a foot and a half; and Dr. Smith 

 states that he has frequently found them from one to two and a half 

 feet from the surface of the ground. But there are many well at- 

 tested cases on record of their being found from three to six feet, 

 and in one case ten feet below the surface. The following additional 

 cases have come to my knowledge. Mr. Charles W. Woolston stated 

 to me that he found them six feet under ground whilst digging a road- 

 way through the side of a hill. Mr. Geo. S. Haskell, of Rockford, saw 

 them come up through the bottom of a cellar in the latter part of 

 April. And Dr. N. S. Read, of Chandlersville, in Cass county, writes, 

 that whilst examining some mounds on the bluffs of the Sangamon 

 river, in the spring, he found fully grown grubs of the Cicada fire feet 

 below the surface. 



Mr. Henry W. Searis gave me the following more explicit statement. 

 Whilst digging a vault in connection with one of the public school 

 houses in this town, on the fifth of September, 1868, he found the lo- 

 cust grubs four feet from the surface. The ground was so hard that it 

 had to be loosened with a pick axe. The grubs were nearly fully 

 giowu, rather softer and paler than the mature grubs, but active and 

 apparently in good condition. It will be observed that this was three 

 years before the period of their maturity. The date of the observation 

 is also worthy of particular notice as it serves to fill an important gap 

 in their history. In the accounts of these cases it has usually been 

 omitted to state the time of year when the observations were made, and 

 therefore we have been left in doubt whether the insects had probably 

 retired to these depths for winter quarters, or were living and feeding 



