A New Species of Cicada, from the Cascade Mountains. 433 



mission finished, she drops fainting and exhausted from the 

 branch, and dies. 



The male, who is always trilling his refrain, goes on indif- 

 ferent, or unconscious, that the task of his faithful spouse is 

 finished, singing ever, until his time comes, then he, too, drops 

 beside her. Thus the songs, one by one, cease, not only the 

 cicada' s, but all the forest choir, and give place to the winter 

 blasts, that sigh in mournful music through the leafless trees. 

 These winds tear from the trees the decaying branches, which 

 the instinct of the insect proclaimed were dying months pre- 

 vious. From the nests that are in these fallen branches, it is 

 easy for the grub, the larvae of the cicada, to bury itself in 

 the earth, its future home • but those that come out whilst 

 the branch remains on the tree, have to make a perilous 

 descent. Fifty to sixty days from the time the eggs were 

 deposited, there emerged an ugly little yellowish grub, covered 

 with soft hair, lively and bustling • pinkish eyes, its feet 

 armed with claws ; if on the tree, they rushed directly to the 

 end of the branch, and, without any apparent fear, precipitated 

 themselves recklessly to the ground, where, without loss of 

 time, they commenced digging. Their fore legs, shaped some- 

 what after the fashion of a mole's, enable them to turn up the 

 ground with great expedition, ten to twelve seconds being 

 long enough for one to get entirely out of sight. How long* 

 they remain in the larvae condition I am unable to say. 



It is a wise provision of nature that the cicada should 

 produce such a numerous offspring • for their enemies, ever 

 ready to pounce upon and destroy, not only the mature insect, 

 but the eggs, larvae, and pupa, are legion. Ants are untiring 

 in their search for the cicada's eggs, and I have constantly ob- 

 served them coming down from the trees, carrying the eggs in 

 their mouths. Moles, too, eat the grubs during their terrestrial 

 existence, and the brilliant Oriole, in his livery of orange and 

 black, hunts for the insect under the leaves, nips it with 

 its sharp beak, and descending to the ground, picks it to 

 pieces, and, like a dainty epicure, swallows only the choicest 

 morsels. 



The Louisiana tanager seizes and gobbles him up bodily, 

 crafty woodpeckers and stealthy little flycatchers pounce upon 

 him in the midst of his song, and finish his life ere it is well 

 begun. It is just possible that the female is voiceless, so as 

 to insure greater security against the risk of capture whilst 

 depositing her eggs. 



"Westwood tells us that of 150 species of cicadas at 

 the Royal Museum at Berlin, 70 are from America. One of 

 the most singular of these is the Cicada septendecem, so 

 named from a supposition that it only makes its appearance 



VOL. VIII. — NO. VI. I" p 



