CHAPTER VII 

 THE PERIODICAL CICADA 



It is to be observed, in most of our human affairs, that 

 we give greatest acclaim to the spectacular, and, further- 

 more, that when once a hero has delivered the great thrill, 

 all his acts of everyday life acquire headline values. Thus 

 a biographer may run on at great length about the petty 

 details in the life of some great person, knowing well that 

 the public, under the spell of hero worship, will read with 

 avidity of things that would make but the dullest plati- 

 tudes if told of any undistinguished mortal. Therefore, 

 in the following history of our famous insect, universally 

 known as the "seventeen-year locust," the writer does not 

 hesitate to insert matter that would be dry and tedious 

 if given in connection with a commonplace creature. 



Most unfortunate it is, now, that we are compelled to 

 divest our hero of his long-worn epithet of "seventeen-year 

 locust," and to present him in the disguise of his true 

 patronymic, which is cicada (pronounced si-ka'-da). In 

 a scientific book, however, we must have full respect for 

 the proprieties of nomenclature; and since, as already 

 explained in Chapter I, the name "locust" belongs to 

 the grasshopper, we can not continue to designate a cicada 

 by this term, for so doing would but propagate confusion. 

 Moreover, even the praenomen of "seventeen-year" is 

 misleading, for some of the members of the species have 

 thirteen-year lives. Entomologists, therefore, have re- 

 christened the "seventeen-year locust" the periodical 

 cicada. 



The cicada family, the Cicadidae, includes many species 



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