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of this species, so that it would be possible to accurately indicate to 

 orchardists the time when trees could be most safely planted. The 

 full distribution of many of the broods had never been determined 

 and he considered it very desirable that this should be done. 



Mr. Alwood remarked that in his experience injury from the 

 seventeen-year locust had frequently been quite severe. He men- 

 tioned an instance where 400 or 500 5-year-old trees in an orchard of 

 5,000 had been so injured by the cicada that they had been pulled out. 



Mr. Marlatt spoke in behalf of the sentiment expressed by Mr. 

 Schwarz. and emphasized the fact that the periodical cicada is our 

 most interesting insect, and thought it would be unfortunate if it 

 were exterminated. He considered that the damage occasioned by it. 

 on the whole, was slight, but that in individual instances considerable 

 injury had been done. He referred to an orchard belonging to Mr. 

 M. B. Waite. near Washington City, where the cicadas had come out 

 from the edge of a woods and had punctured a few of the adjacent 

 rows quite badly, so that one year's growth was lost. Properly cut 

 back, no lasting injury would be sustained. 



Mr. Hopkins agreed with Mr. Schwarz as to the interest surround- 

 ing this species, and remarked in regard to the broods that he was 

 beginning to be somewhat skeptical as to the propriety of using the 

 term brood with its present significance. He thought that as the 

 knowledge of this species increased it would be found that there was a 

 great deal of intergrading. and also that representatives of so-called 

 broods were likely to appear every year, even in the same State. He 

 had evidence from AY est Virginia that the periodical cicada appeared 

 annually in certain localities. He thought it would be very difficult, 

 except where the intervals were marked, to designate them a- distinct, 

 or to refer each to a recognized brood. 



Mr. Marlatt called attention to the work of Dr. Gideon B. Smith. 

 who lived in the first half of the last century, and who had studied 

 the cicada very extensively between 1^25 and 1850, or thereabout-. 

 Dr. Smith had prepared a very important paper, which he had never 

 published. An abstract of Dr. Smith's record of broods had been 

 published in the speaker's paper on the cicada (Bulletin 14. United 

 States Division of Entomology). Dr. Smith had called attention to 

 the idea just advanced by Mr. Hopkins, namely: The fact oi the 

 gradual breaking up of old broods, which in the course of time might 

 cause the cicada to appear in every cicada-brood region every year. 

 This did not mean that the seventeen-year period would be lost, but 

 that there would be Buch a splitting up of the broods by acceleration 

 and retardation that the marked periods of appearance in considerable 

 numbers would cease. 



