Ir, 1. THE OAK. 119 
A more dangerous enemy is fortunately of much more rare 
occurrence. ‘The oak woods in some parts of the Old Colony, 
are, at distant intervals, alarmed by the shrill, discordant rattle of 
the seventeen-year Cicada or locust. They sometimes come 
out of the ground in such multitudes as, by their weight, to 
bend and even break the limbs of the trees. Their long sub- 
terranean residence has sufficed for the other ends of existence; 
they come to the light only to propagate and die. Their eggs 
are deposited in great numbers in the pith of the smaller 
branches of the oak, which are thus destroyed ; are broken off by 
the winds or by their own weight, and remain hanging by the 
bark, giving a gloomy appearance to the woods; or they fall with 
their withered foliage to the earth. This, if annually repeated, 
would be a fatal scourge. ‘The long periods which intervene 
before the return to the surface of the succeeding generation, 
alone preserve the forests from entire destruction. 
Still more fatal are the ravages of those insects which invade 
the trunks of the oak trees. ‘The larve of one of the Buprestian 
beetles, (Chrysobdthris femordta, 1b. 4—5), bore into the trunk 
of the white oak; those of the timber beetles. (Lymécylon and 
Hylecetus, ib. 52), make long cylindrical burrows in the solid 
wood of the oak, while standing in health: grubs of the northern 
Brenthus, (Arrhenddes septentrionalis, ib. 61), make similar bur- 
rows in the trunk of trees which are beginning to decay, and 
especially in those that have been cut down, which are attacked 
during the first summer after they are felled; the larve of the 
sray-sided Curculio, (Pandeletéius hildris, ib. 62), make their 
habitation in the trunk of the white oak; and the grubs of the 
horn-bug, (Lucdnus capréolus, ib. 40), live in the trunk and 
roots of old oaks, as well as in those of several other species of 
trees. 
The white oak is liable to the attacks of an insect, which 
punctures the small branches and introduces an egg, which has 
a 
such an effect upon the juices of the tree, as to form upon the 
* Cuwada septéndecim. Harris’s Report on Insects, pp. 167-175. See the pas- 
sages here referred to for a most interesting account of these insects. Though 
called locusts in this country, they are very different from the locusts of history, 
which are grasshoppers. 
