THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



Sb 



seed cavity of an apple. The generic name 

 comes from the " Gordian Knot "—cut by 

 Alexander the Great— because of the habit 

 they have of tangling or knotting themselves 

 up, making it almost impossible to straighten 

 them out. 



These animals belong to the Annelids, 

 which compose the first class of articulated 

 animals, and the only class that has red blood. 

 Hence, in Cuvier's classification they stand 

 before crustaceans, spiders and insects. Their 

 most singular characteristic is tliat they pass 

 the earliest part of their developmental period 

 within the bodies of other animals. Notaljly in 

 beetles and grasshoppers. About fifteen years 

 ago I noticed a singular mortality amongst the 

 grasshoppers in the vicinity of Lancaster, and 

 upon investigation I found them infested by 

 Gordians, from three to four inches in length, 

 some of them protruding from one to two 

 inches. The largest specimen I have ever 

 seen was donated to the Linnwan Society last 

 summer. It measures eight inches in length, 

 and was drawn from the body of a large beetle 

 — from the description of which, I conjectured 

 to be Copris caroJiiin— commonly called the 

 "Dor-beetle." The Linniean Society has 

 also a female specimen in its possession tliat 

 has a string of eggs attached to her body. 

 The eggs being very minute, are drank in, or 

 otherwise appropriated by animals, and the 

 development of the Gordius takes place there. 

 The history of the development of the Gor- 

 dians makes slow progress, and is involved in 

 difficulties. Nearly as much was known 

 about them one hundred years ago as is 

 known now. It was believed then that they 

 were fatally poisonous, but that notion has 

 been long since dissipated. It was also be- 

 lieved then that they were really animated 

 horse-hairs, and that belief still exists, and 

 will continue to exist, until natural science is 

 practically made a department in our systems 

 of education. 



* * * About two years earlier than the 

 events alluded to, I had my Jirst entomologi- 

 cal experience, and it appears as fresh in my 

 memory as it did the day on which it oc- 

 curred. It was in the mouth of .June, 1S17, 

 when I was a little over five years of age. My 

 father led led me into an open chapperal, a 

 short distance from our house, containing 

 dwarfed sassafras, paw-paw, locust, wild- 

 cherry, and other trees and shrubbery, to 

 show me the "Seventeen-year locust." There 

 were thousands of them on the low plants 

 within my reach. Unknown to him I cap- 

 tured perhaps a dozeu of them which I put 

 into my red-leather hat, and clapped it on my 

 head. AVhen I returned home and took off 

 my hat the locusts were all tangled in the 

 hair of my head, and my mother, and some 

 of the neighbors who were present, indulged 

 In a first-class terror ; giving me a rough 

 brushing, expelling the insects and tramping 

 them under foot : of course, I did not know 

 what it all meant, but I was subsequently in- 

 structed that they could, and would sting, 

 and that their sting was fatal. 



I do not propose to discuss the question— 

 except perhaps incidentally— whether they 

 can sting or cannot, whether they \oill sting or 

 will not, nor whether their sting is poisonous 

 or not. One thing I do know, that I saw and 

 freely handled the " Seventeen-year Locust" 



in 1817, in 1S34, in is.'jl, in 180S, and if I live 

 until June, 188-5, I shall very probably see 

 and handle them again ; and I cannot say 

 that I was ever apprehensive of being stung 

 by tiiem, at the same time, I would not posi- 

 tively negative their stinging power. 



There are a great many errors extant in 

 regard to the history and tiie habits of this 

 insect. In the first place, it is not a locust at 

 all. Tlie United States, is perhaps the only 

 country on this planet where the term Locust 

 has ever been applied to it. Various species 

 of tills insect exist in every country on the 

 earth, that has yet been explored ; except 

 perliaps the nortliern regions ; but, I do not 

 think that any species but our own, is in the 

 habit of only making its appearance every 

 seventeen years, (barring a species we also 

 have, which makes its appearance every 

 thirteen years.) Our seventeen year species 

 is a Cicada— the seventeen year cicada," as 

 contradistinguished from our annual or 

 "Dog-day cicada," (the cicada caniculuris.) 

 It is the Cicada septcndecim of LiniiEeus. 

 When I was a boy, and for some time .after- 

 wards, and perhaps at the present day, a 

 notion prevailed and may still prevail, 

 that the cicada or 'Locusts" burrows 

 downward into the earth for eight years 

 and a half, and then turns around and occu- 

 pies the remaining eight years and a half in 

 coming to the surftice again. What would be 

 the use in turning back at all? If it kept right 

 on it would be just as likely to reach the 

 other side of the globe. No, it must have food, 

 and those seventeen years are occupied in 

 sucking the juices of vegetation— having been 

 frequently found adhering to the roots of 

 trees. They probably never go down much 

 lower than the frost line. 



Their song is not vocal— it is altogether 

 mechanical — and is a sort of drumming, the 

 males being provided with a pair of tumhours 

 for that purpose. Except the occasional flut- 

 tering of their wings, the females are entirely 

 silent ; hence that illnatured old crumudgeon, 

 Xenarclius, has written : 



"Happy are cicada's lives 

 Since they all have voiceless wives." 

 The females usually deposit their eggs in 

 the smaller branches of trees and shrubbery, 

 and when this takes place among small trees 

 in a nursery, that part of the tree or branch 

 above the incision usually dies. The incision 

 is made with the rasping ovipositor of the 

 female, and as the operation requires consid 

 erable lever power, it is supposed she selects 

 a branch that she can embrace with her feet, 

 in order to get that power. It is questionable 

 whether she could succeed at all on a flat sur- 

 face. I have witnessed the operation and 

 found it slow and apparently laborious. She 

 could not alight on a human body or any other 

 body and inflict an instantaneous sting like 

 a hornet, a bee or a wasp. Neither could 

 she inflict an instantaneous wound with her 

 proboscis. A mosquito can't, a horse-fly 

 can't, nor can any other suctorial insect. It 

 requires some time and efibrt to accomplish 

 this. Hence the stories about their stinging 

 people are doubtful. 



It is of some importance that animals 

 should be called by their appropriate names ; 

 and yet, outside of the pale of natural science, 

 there is some confusion in the nomenclature 



both of the Cicada and the Locust. Some 

 years ago I received a newspaper from a town 

 in Tennessess. in which the editor stated that 

 the seventeen-year Locust had appeared in that 

 vicinity, and was eating off the herbage and 

 vegetation in general down close to the 

 ground, and was creating a panic and threat- 

 ening a famine in the land. 



Now, so far as this relates to what has been 

 wrongly named the seventeen-year Locust, 

 the thing is utterly impossible. If it feeds on 

 anything at all, in its brief period above 

 ground, it must be in a fluid state, because it 

 is entirely witliout masticatory organs ; more- 

 over they are not in the habit of setting on 

 succulent vegetation to any extent, and then 

 only temporarily. They would not deposit 

 their eggs in sucli a plant, because it would 

 wilt and die before the eggs were hatched. 

 That frightened editor must have had refer- 

 ence to the Rocky Mountain Locust, or an 

 allied species ; which, in this locality, would 

 be called a "Grasshopper." It is not at all 

 surprising that the masses of the people 

 should misname things when the same blund- 

 ers are perpetrated by historians, and even 

 lexicographers. If you look into Webster's 

 Dictionary you will find the definitions of 

 Cicada and Locust correct enough because 

 they were given by a naturalist ; but, in illus- 

 trating the latter the publishers have perpe- 

 trated a great pictorial blunder in represent- 

 ing a Locust by a Mantis, commonly called a 

 "Camel Cricket." Although belonging to the 

 same natural order (Ortiioi'teea) yet there 

 is a wide diflerence between a Mantis and a 

 Locust, both in structure and in habit. The 

 Mantis is carnivorous and a grasper, hence its 

 anterior feet are largely developed ; but the 

 Locust is herbivorous and a leaper, hence 

 its posterior feet are largely developed 

 —indeed there is more difference be- 

 tween them than there is between a 

 hawk aud a hen. In Ainsworth's 

 Latin Dictionary the definition of Cicada is 

 given as a sauterelle, or balm cricket ; a grass- 

 hopper ; sauterell being the French name for 

 grasshopper. Now, all these are Orthoptek- 

 ous, or straight-winged leaping insects, but 

 the Cicada has no leaping powers whatever. 

 The same dictionary defines Locusta as a lo- 

 cust ; a lobster, a mischievous insect. The 

 Cicada is a Homopterous insect, because its 

 wings are -homogenous, they are all the same 

 in form and structure, diflfering only in size ; 

 I so you will observe that dictionaries are not 

 always reliable in natural science. 



The Cicada was known to the Greeks under 

 the name of Tettix, or Tettrix, (this generic 

 name being still applied to a group of Homop- 

 terous insects), and they seem to have been 

 the favorite of every Grecian bard from 

 Homer to Anacreon. Believing " them to be 

 perfectly harmless, and living only upon dew, 

 they were addressed by the most endearing 

 epithets, and were regarded as almost divine." 



Thus sang Anacreon : 



Happy creature ! what below, can more happy live than 



ives thy ver- 

 dant crown, 

 Sipping" o'er the pearly lawn, fragrant nectars of the 



Little tales thou lov'st to t 



King. 

 Thine the pure immortal 



Rich In spirits— health thy feast, thou art a demigod >t 



leaat.l 



, tales of mirth — an insect 

 11, blood nor flesh thy life 



