161 



and humorous account is given of the solution by the reporter of 

 that paper of the mystery of the so-called " weeping trees," reports 

 of which from Grayson County and other parts of Texas are said 

 to have " set the State agog with various explanations of the phe- 

 nomenon, ranging from the superstitious credence of the super- 

 naturally inclined to the positive denial and derisive laugh of the con- 

 stitutionally skeptical." The brave reporter, however, upon the 

 discovery of one of these remarkable trees in Dallas, laying aside all 

 superstition, climbed courageously up the trunk and discovered that 

 the tears were shed by a multitude of small insects " of dark green 

 color with gold under the wings, which adhered to the bark and scam- 

 pered about when disturbed, and flew away when pressed too closely." 

 Prof. G. W. Curtis, of the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College, 

 secured specimens and sent them to Professor Osborn, who recognized 

 them as the common little leaf-hopper, Proconia (Oncometopia) undata, 

 which we have referred to in previous writings and on pages 53 and 54 of 

 vol. 1 of Insect Life as occurring upon the Orange in Florida and upon 

 cotton-plants in other Southern States, and which we have there stated 

 is remarkable for the distance to which it ejects drops of honey-dew. 



We frequently met with this species in the cotton-fields in the sum- 

 mer of 1879, and noted the extraordinary abundance of the secretion. 

 Professor Curtis in his letter to Professor Osborn stated that in Dallas 

 they made the tree present a decided appearance of weeping quite pro- 

 fusely, the drops being small but coming: quite thick and fast. Each 

 insect would eject a drop at intervals of two seconds during a period of 

 several minutes, and would then stop for a little while. 



AN EARLY OCCURRENCE OF THE PERIODICAL CICADA. 



Dr. J. C. Eidpath, the historian, has very kindly sent me the follow- 

 ing extract from one of the many valuable works contained in his private 

 library. The writer had the State of Virginia under consideration 

 when the excerpt was written, and therefore it is quite probable that 

 the third prodigy was an occurrence of what is now known as Brood 

 VIII of Cicada septendecim. — F. M. Webster. 



(Stedman's Library of American Literature, Volume I, pages 462, M3. Excerpt from the writings of 

 T. M., supposed to have been Thomas Matthews, son of Samuel Matthews, governor of Virginia. 

 Written in 1705. ] 



About the year 1675 appeared three prodigies in that country, which, from the 

 attending disasters, were looked upon as ominous presages. 



The one was a large comet every evening for a week or more at southwest, thirty- 

 five degrees high, streaming like a horse-tail westwards until it reached almost the 

 horizon, and setting towards the northwest. 



Another was flights of pigeons, in breadth nigh a quarter of the mid-hemisphere, and 

 of their length was no visible end; whose weights break down the limbs of large 

 trees whereon these rested at nights, of which the fowlers shot abundance and eat 

 them; this sight put the old planters under the more portentous apprehensions, be- 

 cause the like was seen, as they said, in the year 1640, when the Indians committed the 

 last massacre, but not after until that present year, 1675. 



