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



once in seventeen years, a statement, the accuracy of which I 

 am much disposed to question. All the known species of 

 cicadas, without an exception, as far as I know, spend only 

 two years from the larvae to the perfect insect, and it appears 

 somewhat strange there should be a solitary exception to this 

 apparently general law. Seventeen years seems an enormous 

 time for an insect to remain in an immature condition under- 

 ground. No one has ever kept the larvae for that period of 

 time ; but because unusual numbers of cicadas have been noticed 

 as occurring at long intervals, it is at once assumed that seven- 

 teen years must have been spent in the larvae state. I have 

 never passed a summer in America without finding numerous 

 specimens of this insect, the red-eyed cicada, as it is popu- 

 larly styled. 



The name Cicada is of somewhat doubtful origin. Beck- 

 man traces its derivation, ciccum, a thin skin ; aBecv, a sound ; 

 then by others it is said to come from the Latin, cito cadat, 

 short-lived, or soon to pass away. The Greeks named them 

 Tettix, the French, Ghanteuses, singers. By the Germans 

 they are styled Harper (Lierman). Virgil, writing of the 

 Cicadas, deems their chaunt more loud than agreeable : — 



Et cantu querulge rumpent arbusta Cicadse. 



Widely different is the strain of a modern poet in reference to 

 the celebrated Pineta, or Pine Forest, near Ravenna, where 

 bards have wandered, and Cicadas sung, from time imme- 

 morial. He writes : — 



" The shrill Cicalas ! people of the Pine, 

 Making their summer lives one ceaseless song : 

 There, the sole echoes, save my steeds and mine, 

 And vesper bells, that rose the boughs along." 



Bteon. 



Or, as an American writer suggests : — ■ 



" Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 

 Through the sad heart of Eoith, when sick for home 

 She stood in tears, amid the alien corn." 



Homer, Virgil, Anacreon, and various ancient poets, have 

 alike sung the praises of the Cicadas. An Athenian banquet, 

 without an entree of Cicadas, was deemed as great a failure as 

 would be, in these days, a Greenwich feast without whitebait. 

 The larvae and pupa were esteemed the greater dainties, but a 

 female full of eggs, artistically browned, and served up hot 

 and juicy, was a bonne bouche the Greek epicure well knew 

 how to estimate. Even Aristotle thought the dish a luscious 

 one, "quo tempore gusta suavissima sunt/' and at the present 

 time cicadas are regularly sold in the markets of South 

 America. The legs and wings are stripped off, and the body 



