Notes a certain parts of ihe State of Ohie.  — 349 
are easily caught. The hogs are very fond of them and de- 
vour all they can find, and indeed they seem to have com: 
menced their attack upon them, by rooting, before they left 
the ground. [tis thirteen days since they first hegan to break 
from the earth, but did not leave their holes, in any great 
numbers, on account of the cold, till lately.” The last of 
June, the cicade gradually disappeared. At this time the 
females were very weak and exhausted; and some which 1 
examined, appeared to have wasted away to mere skeletons, 
nothing remaining but their wings and an empty shell of a 
body. Since that time few, or none, have appeared in this 
county ; but I have heard of their being seen in some of the © 
neighbouring states, I believe east of the mountains. 3 
While the cicadw remained with us, I could not discover 
that they made use of any kind of food, although I examined 
them repeatedly and particularly for this purpose. All the 
injury they did to vegetation, was in depositing their eggs ; 
by this process they materially injured, and in some in- 
Stances nearly destroyed, young orchards of apple-trees. 
Many of them to this day will bear ample testimony to the 
truth of this remark, in their mutilated limbs and knotted 
branches. 
In addition to the foregoing observations, I have learnt to 
a certainty, that it is seventeen years since the cicade were 
here before. Early in the spring of 1795, a clearing was 
commenced eight miles above this place, on the Muskingum, and 
an orchard put out on the piece, perhaps half an acre, that 
was cut over before the cicadw appeared ; the rest of the 
clearing was made the same season, after they had disap- 
peared. When they again appeared in 1812, it was observed 
by Mr. Wright, the occupant of the land, that not one cica- 
da came out of the earth on that piece of ground where he 
had cut the trees before they appeared in 1795; but that on 
all the rest of the land, wherever there was a stump, or a tree 
had stood, the earth was full of holes made by the ascending 
cicade. These facts areinmy mind a sufficient evidence that 
it is seventeen years between the laying of the egg, and the 
re-appearance of the cicada. ‘Through how many transfor- 
-Mations they pass, is to me unknown; but from the length of 
time they le in the earth, it is probable the changes are more 
than one. But that they do not travel far is evident, frdm 
their coming up immediately by, or under the spot; where 
ihe tree stood in which the eggs were deposited. 
Vou. X:—No. 2. 42 
