91 



ourselves seen them insert it into and extract it from the brancnes of 

 different trees, and know that the operation is quite rapid and that 

 the instrument is quite shai-p and strong." The same statement was 

 repeated by Professor Rilej" seventeen years later." Professor Riley 

 also adds a note in reference to an experience of Mr. Gustavus Pauls, 

 in which an apricot tree was so severely injured bj- the puncture of 

 their beaks in the course of feeding that he took from the tree a 

 gallon of coagulated sap; and he attributes the death of some of his 

 trees to this cause. In the course of his observations on the seven- 

 teen-year locusts on Staten Island in 1894,* Mr. W. T. Davis says: 

 "The black birch and sweet gum were also great favorites, both as 

 depositories for the eggs and also from which to draw sustenance. It 

 was no uncommon matter to see rows of cicadas along the branches of 

 the sweet gum, each insect with its proboscis stuck into the bark." 

 He also adds, speaking of sumach {Rhios glahrd): " Though the cicadas 

 were fond of sucking the sap of this bush, yet they rarely tried laying 

 eggs in its tissues." 



According to Dr. J. B. Smith,"^ "very little injury is done in feed- 

 ing, the food consisting of sap of trees of many kinds." Dr. A. D. 

 Hopkins ^ states that the adult cicadas feed but little, if at all. 



In our latest and most authoritative report on this interesting species, 

 Bulletin No. 14, new series. Division of Entomology, United States 

 Department of Agriculture, by Mr. C. L. Marlatt, it is stated, doubt- 

 less after due consideration of all the evidence bearing on the subject, 

 under the caption "Food habits of the adult insects," p. 72, that "the 

 taking of food in the adult stage seems to be of rare occurrence, and 

 has been observed and commented on by a few of the entomologists 

 who have studied the species. That the periodical cicada feeds at all 

 has even been questioned, and it is quite possible that in some of the 

 cases where it was supposed to have been feeding, the action of the 

 insect was misinterpreted. Such feeding is limited, at any rate, to 

 the female, as in this sex only do we find a perfect digestive apparatus, 

 that of the male being rudimentary." 



My attention was called to this question during the height of the 

 abundance of the present brood by the receipt of a letter from a cor- 

 respondent to the effect that the cicadas were feeding on his orchard 

 trees, and desiring a remedy. After writing him to the effect that he 

 was doubtless mistaken in his observations, as the cicadas fed but lit- 

 tle, if at all, in the adult stage, a visit the following day to a near by 

 orchard of three or four-year-old apple and pear trees showed that 



oBulletin 8 (o. s.), Div. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agric, p. 14. 



6Nat. Science Association of Staten Island, Vol. IV, No. 9, September, 1894, 

 pp. 33-35. 



<^ Bulletin 95, New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, p. 5. 

 "^West Viiginia Expt. Sta. Bui. 50, p. 9, and Bui. 68, p. 265. 



