42 APPLE-TWIGSj LOCUST ITS SONG. 



recognized, though at a distance of some twenty rods. As it was 

 repeated at short intervals, I was able to draw near and capture 

 the songster, who had come out some days in advance of the 

 main swarm. The note, which is uttered only by the males, is 

 peculiar, and may be represented by the letters tsh-ee-%-% e-e-b-om, 

 uttered continuously, and prolonged to a quarter or a half minute 

 in length, the middle of the note being deafeningly shrill, loud 

 and piercing to the ear, and its termination gradually lowered till 

 the sound expires. In a wood in the vicinity of Ottawa, Illinois, 

 on the 22d of September last, I heard the note of a cicada identi- 

 cal with the above, except that the syllables were short, and 

 uttered at regular brief intervals, thus, tsheeou, tsheeou, tsheeou, 

 much resembling the creaking of a grindstone when in want of 

 grease. This was probably some autumnal species, a native of 

 that vicinity; but it might possibly have been a straggling indi- 

 vidual of the seventeen-year locust, which had not completed his 

 transformation until three months after his due time, and which 

 uttered his notes in this hurried, impatient tnanner, upon finding 

 himself " solitary and alone." 



Circumstances may cause this insect to appear and disappear 

 somewhat earlier at some of its visits than at others. Mr. Wight, 

 editor of the Prairie Farmer, informs me that the Illinois brood 

 last year had mostly disappeared upon the fourth of July, whilst 

 the preceding visit of this same brood was in vigorous life and 

 activity at that date, as was recollected from the fact that a 

 particular neighborhood had met together to commemorate the 

 day, in a harn, which was the most spacious edilice in the vicini- 

 ty, and the company were much annoyed in their festivities by 

 the incessant din which these locusts kept up in and around the 

 building. 



This insect dwells entirely in timber land, never inhabiting 

 fields which have been cleared seventeen years, or the prairie 

 lands of th« west. It was noticed the past year as being more 

 wide-spread in many places in Illinois than it was on its previous 

 visit. Fruit or forest trees, wherever they had been planted 

 upon th« prairies, were seventeen years ago destitute of these in- 



