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1883.] Entomology. 321 
home one evening he took his path across this clearing where the 
June grass then stood knee-high, and while passing the stump of 
the oak tree he was astonished to find the whole place alive with 
some insect which, on examination, proved to be the seventeen- 
year Cicada, They were well down among the roots of the grass, 
but what struck him as very singular was the fact that in all this 
host the head of every one was directed toward the stump which 
not one of them could see or ever had seen. Returning next 
swim across the Atlantic. Was it also instinct that impelled these 
seventeen-year Cicadas towards the invisible trunk of the tree 
under which they had made for so many years their subterranean 
home? Did the “sense of direction” lie dormant in that mite of 
a nervous chord through its egg-existence, and for seventeen 
years afterwards? I know this phenomenon is not without 
The faculty that carries the lemming to destruction, and the 
nervous system of this insect is susceptible to outside impres- 
Sions, to retain them and transmit them for the use of gen- 
erations yet unborn, for their guidance; is as wonderful as any 
act of reason, if not more so. The young insect may be said to 
see with its parents’ eyes, and consequently sees things as they 
Were in its parents’ lifetime. Are the impressions made upon the 
. Nerves of the parent handed down to the offspring, as some of the 
cal or chemical properties of the proteine compound which 
forms the basis of their life ? 
