INSECTS 



forward a few steps and begins work on another nest, 

 which is completed in the same fashion. Some series 

 consist of only three or four nests, while others contain 

 as many as twenty and a few even more, but perhaps 

 eight to twelve are the usual numbers. When the female 

 has finished what she deems sufficient on one twig, she 

 flies away and is said to make further layings elsewhere, 

 till she has disposed oi her 400 to 600 eggs, but the writer 

 made no observations covering this point. Probably 

 the cicada feels it safer not to intrust all her eggs to one 

 tree, on the principle of not putting all your money in the 

 same bank. 



Death of the Adults 



The din of music in the trees continues with monot- 

 onous regularity into the second week of June, by which 

 time the mating season is over. Soon thereafter the per- 

 formers lose their vitality; large numbers of them drop 

 to the earth where many perish from an internal fungus 

 disease that eats off the terminal rings of the body; 

 others are mutilated and destroyed by birds, and the 

 rest perhaps just die a natural death. Beneath the trees, 

 where a great swarm has but recently given such abundant 

 evidence of life, the ground is now strewn with the dead 

 or dying. A large percentage of the living are in various 

 stages of disfigurement — wings are torn off, abdomens are 

 broken open or gone entirely, mere fragments crawl about, 

 still alive if the head and thorax are intact. In the males 

 often the great muscle columns of the drums are exposed 

 and visibly quivering, and many of the insects, game to 

 the end, even in their dilapidated condition still utter 

 purring remnants of their song. 



From now on till the latter part of July, the only evi- 

 dence of the late swarm of noisy visitors will be the scarred 

 twigs on the trees and bushes that have received the eggs 

 and the red-brown patches of dying leaves that every- 

 where disfigure the oaks and hickories. 



[214] 



