46 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[Feb. 



forest trees, by publishing circumstantial accounts of per- 

 sons " fatally poisoned by the bite and sting of the seven- 

 teen year locust." 



Some eighteen years ago I became greatly interested 

 in a study of the sting of the Honey Bee, the results of 

 which were published in the Quarterly Microscopical 

 Journal, and seeing these newspaper reports, I was 

 naturally interested in making an examination of the 



armor by means of which the Cicada accomplished such 

 alleged fatal effects. 



Cicada septendecim belongs to the natural order of in- 

 sects called Hemiptera, which is not at all related to the 

 destructive family of locusts, or grasshoppers, and its 

 mouth parts are, in a general way, typical of the order to 

 which it belongs, being drawn out into a long and ex- 

 tremely slender stylet or sucking tube, enclosed nearly 

 to its point in the broad labium. 



