REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST 



423 



eggs enlarged are figured underneath the pupa), but their peculiar 

 appearance, as made by repeated thrusts of the ovipositor, is more cor- 

 rectly given at e. A greatly magnified figure of the young cicada (the 

 larva) just as it hatches from the egg and drops from the tree to enter 

 the ground and feed on the sap of the rootlets is given at /. Figure g 

 is another representation of the winged insect, in which one of the 

 wings has its natural position when at rest. 



The pupa comes from the ground through a smooth round hole 

 extending some distance downward, of the diameter of the tip of a 

 man's little finger. 



A remarkable departure from this usual habit has come to our notice 

 this year at a locality in New Baltimore, N. Y., sixteen miles south of 

 Albany, where, at least as early as the last week in April, the pupte 

 had brought up from apparently a considerable depth, masses of a soft 

 clay-like material and moulded it 

 above ground into rudely conical or 

 cylindric structures, for their tem- 

 porary occupancy, it is supposed. 

 The ground was almost covered 

 with them. In places twenty-five 

 could be counted to the square foot. 

 They inclined at a considerable 

 angle from the perpendicular and 

 measured from two to three and a 

 half inches in height. The chamber 

 within was uniform in diameter 

 with the hole in the ground. Fig- 

 ures h and i, taken from photographs 

 on wood made for the Country 

 Gentleman, are of about two-thirds the natural size. The pupa, when 

 its full time has come, breaks a round opening through the upper part 

 of the chamber for its escape. 



It is not known when they were built or how they were made. Why 

 they were constructed by all of the insects in this locality and not 

 elsewhere is a mystery full of interest and for which no satisfactory 

 conjecture can be offered. Only two other instances of their occur- 

 rence in former years have been given by writers, and only one speci- 

 men up to the present is known in any collection — in that of the 

 National Museum at Washington, deposited there about twenty-five 

 years ago. 



The purpose of the present circular is to obtain all the information 

 of this interesting insect that can be secured during the remainder of 



Fig. 15. 



Clay buildings of the seventeen-year 

 cicada. 



