OF THE FARM AND GARDEi^. 



193 



in a line with tlie first, and repeats tlie operation until she 

 has filled the fissure from one end to the other, upon 

 which she remoyes to a little distance, and begins to make 

 another nest to contain two more rows of eggs. She is 

 about fifteen minutes in preparing a single nest and fill- 

 ing it with eggs; but it is not unusual for her to make 

 fifteen or twenty fissures in the same limb; and one ob- 

 server counted fifty nests extending along in a line, each 

 containing fifteen or twenty eggs in two rows, and all of 



Fig. 119. — A punctlked twig. 



them apparently the work of one insect. After one limb 

 is thus stocked, the Cicada goes to another, and passes 

 from limb to limb and from tree to tree, until her store, 

 which consists of four hundred or five hundred eggs, is ex- 

 hausted. At length she becomes so weak by her inces- 

 sant labors to provide for a succession of her kind, as to 

 falter and fall in attempting to fly, and soon dies. Fig- 

 ure 118, shows a twig in which the eggs have been laid, 

 and another is given in figure 119. 



Although the Cicadas abound most upon the Oak, they 

 resort occasionally to other forest trees, and even to 

 shrubs, when impelled by tlie necessity for depositing 



Fig. 120. — TWIG WITH HEALED PUNCTURES. 



their eggs, and they very often commit them to fruit- 

 trees, when the latter are in their vicinity. The punc- 

 tured limbs languish and die soon after the eggs which 

 are placed in them are hatched; they are broken by the 

 winds or by their own weight, and either remain hanging 

 by the bark alone, or fall with their withered foliage to 



