AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 



281 



most brood, occupying East- Fig. 140. 



ern New York, a part of 

 Connecticut, with a portion 

 of New Jersey and Pennsyl- 

 vania, appeared last in 1843, 

 and is therefore due in 1860 ; 

 while the brood occupying 

 Western New York, and 

 Pennsylvania, and Eastern 

 Ohio, appeared last in 1849, 

 and is due in 1866. 



They are a little larger 

 than the common summer locust (Cicada canicularis), and 

 their note, though similar, is stronger and more shrill. 



They are black, with red eyes and transparent wings and 

 wing covers, the edges and veins of which are orange red, and 

 having the peculiar dark zigzag line resembling a W, which 

 superstition regarded as an omen of coming war in times when 

 wars were so frequent that it could never be mistaken. 



They appear suddenly in the month of June, coming out of 

 the ground as if in a single night. At this time they are in 

 the pupa state, being incased in a thin transparent membrane 

 or shell, which in a few hours after they reach the surface 

 cracks open along the back, and the perfect insects come forth. 

 They are at first feeble and sluggish, but soon gain strength, 

 and the males, who alone carry the music, make the woods re- 

 sound with their shrill notes. 



The chief apparent injury done by them is in depositing 

 their eggs in the young branches, particularly of oak and ap- 

 ple trees. This operation is performed by cutting up the 

 wood of the branch in successive thin slices or splinters, very 

 much as in old times a carpenter commenced the opening of a 

 long, narrow mortice ; under these splinters a double row of 

 eggs is set, to the number of fifteen or twenty ; similar nests 

 are formed until all the eggs are deposited, one individual de- 

 positing four or five hundred. Most of the branches die above 

 the wound, and snap off with the wind either before or after 

 the eggs are hatched, the whole operation becoming a very se- 



