3^6 
open plain. It was now about 9 o'clock P. I found 
as I got nearer that I had struck the Kalee stream at 
some point unknown. The fields in the immediate vicuutj 
were dotted with grazing and crouching forms, into whicu 
1 rode. All scampered mto cover. Ih© moon was now 
nearly setting. I tried to reason out my direction from 
the position it held in the heavens. I knew that thai 
part where it was setting was the west, but I was now so 
thoroughly confused I was quite unable to make a smgle 
deduction. I knew I was turnea. 1 got ott my pony, and 
sat tiown eyes closed to recover layseii, but wnen I 
mounted again i was just as much at sea as ever. Just 
then i heard the tmkle ol cattle beils a good iniie away. 
I galloped over the cracked ground to the imminent 
danger of my pony's legs and niy own neck, ana tound 
a cart drawmg toward tne setting moon, 'ihe cart was 
coming from the village where my camp was and the 
driver set me on my course, i found ttiat 1 had turned 
my back on my road and was going away Irom it at an 
angle of 120 aegrees. Jbortunatcly the experience was 
only a short one, but anything more confusing it is hard 
to imagine. Un the other occasion I was not alone and 
was not responsible for the guiding. But that is another 
story. 
Another time I started from the village of Puzandotmg, 
where a fri»nd had a large grant of paddy land, to visit 
another grant. It lay some 40 minutes off along a 
winding footpath across a level plain. Taking the Puzan- 
doung grantee's foreman as a guide, we started at day- 
break, intending to come back lor breakfast, as, it being 
the cold season, we would not have had a hot sun on our 
return. We sauntered along, taking shots at the duck 
and widgeon too, which we started uom the small ponds 
and hoiiows that lay on either siae ot the track. 
About 7 o'clock a fog settled down, ine fogs in 
this plain are sometimes so ttiick tnat you are unable 
to see your open hand extended belore you at arm's 
length. Ihis tog was not one of the worst, but you 
could not see further than fifty yards. I started a large 
purple heron and loilowed him up. tic led me somewhat 
of a dance, flying low down with short flights. I was 
trying to get him at a high angle overhead, knowing the 
danger of shooting low. in a log. The rest of the party 
followed, just keeping me in Sight. On my rejoining 
them we again started, but after going some two miles 
we seemed to get no nearer our destination. The fore- 
man declared we had been twice as long on the road as 
we need have been, and must have passed the grant in 
the fog. Immediately the tops of some houses came into 
sight, as the fog lifted a little. The foreman cried out 
"Here we are," and made for the huts. We had been 
going on for some two minutes, when he put on a puz- 
zled expression of face and said "Surely that roof there 
looks like my own — it must be — ^it is!" But so "turned" 
was he that he actually recrossed the stream, went up 
to the house, and sat down on the veranda, and it was 
not until he had been seated at his own door for a con- 
siderable time that he recovered his sense of direction 
and could make a second start. This time we were not 
longer on our way than was expected. We had been 
wandering in a circle the better part of the early morning. 
I should have called this a tough yarn if I had heard it 
from a fisherman. I doubt whether if a person had been 
the narrator my belief in it would have been much greater, 
but it was a personal experience and I was bound to be- 
lieve the evidence of my own senses. — Ranchman in the 
Asian. ^ _ 
Forests and the Rainfall. 
There seems to be a general belief that there is so 
much cutting of timber in the New England States and 
northern New York that it influences the rainfall and 
causes the quick melting of the snow by the sun. Many 
letters and articles are printed in the newspapers, and 
even in the Forest and Stream, full of indignation 
toward the wicked pulp and lumber men. Would not 
the facts from the Department of Agriculture at Wash- 
ington, or those of Forestry of Maine and New York, be 
worth publishing? 
It would seem as though a paper such as the Spring- 
field Republican would investigate before publishing the 
article you print in your number of Oct. 6, and see if 
the facts justify it. 
My observation as a sportsman and timber man con- 
vinces me that the rainfall is in no way changed by the 
cutting of timber. Massachusetts has more acres cov- 
ered by woodland than thirty years ago. I quote ftom 
an article on "Possibilities for Farm Forestry in Massa- 
chusetts," by Allen Chamberlain, secretary Massa- 
chusetts Forestry Association. In that article he says: 
"Let us see, for a moment, what our woodland repre- 
sents to-day. By the last census, that of 1895, our 
wooded area is given as nearly 1,500,000 acres, and its 
value as almost $24,000,000. While this is a gain in 
woodland area in ten years of more than 71,000 acres, its 
valuation shows a shrinkage of something over $1,300,000 
in the same period of time. In thirty years the value 
of our woodland has increased some $440,000, and the 
acreage increase shows almost identically the same 
figures. Judging by the census returns, the character of 
our woodlands appears to have improved on the whole 
in the ten years from 1885 to 1895, but the depreciation 
in value of more than $1,300,000 seems to indicate that 
further improvement is possible." 
The statistics show no change in the rainfall. Thou- 
sands of acres of pasture of my boy days are now cov- 
ered with pasture pines, oaks and birches. Little new 
land is cleared now. Does any well-informed authority 
show that rain storms with a velocity of ten, twenty or 
forty miles an hour are influenced by trees? There is a 
greater influence producing rain. The snow is mostly 
melted by rain. The sun is not high or warm enough 
to do much before the great bulk of the snow is gone. 
To know about the woods one must study them at all 
seasons, and talk with woodmen who think, and see what 
is going on. The cutting of timber is now made a trade. 
Owners of the knd want the small trees saved, and work 
with guides and camp owners to avoid fires. They are 
the "vandals" who, when a fire is set by some careless 
hunter, send out men to put it out; no one else can 
afiord it. Hundreds of men are employed to watch and 
vave the forests. 
It seems to me that this subject is of importance, and 
fhat the Forest and Stream can, by consulting such 
men as the New York State Superintendent of Forests 
(I think Mr. Fox) or of Maine (Mr. Oak) or of Massa- 
chusetts (Mr. Stockwell), get valuable information that 
can be relied on as to the actual situation. 
Statistics of rainfall have been kept at Gardiner, Me., 
for about a hundred years, showing the same average 
rainfall in each ten years of about 44 inches. Minnesota, 
with abundant forests, shows less rain (St. Paul as the 
point of observation) than Iowa, which is almost de- 
void of forests (with Des Moines as the point of ob- 
servation). This is from U. S. Weather Bureau. The 
""Krihune Almanac" shows that the rainfall has no 
relatian to forests. This is taken from U. S. Weather 
Bureau. 
It would seem that the increased use of coal by resi- 
dents of country towns , and even by farmers, has greatly 
decreased the use of cordwood, and at the same time 
the value of woodlands in sections where there is no 
timber for lumber. 
Let a little light in on this subject as the timber men 
are doing to the young trees. C. A. D. 
Locusts. 
During the hot, still days of Au^ist, and even during 
early September, may be heard from the tree tops the 
shrill cry of the "locust," a name applied by the small 
boys of the tree country to the cicadas, large hemipterous* 
insects found from New Hampshire southward and 
westward through the tree-covered country as far as 
Kansas. In the prairie region, oftentimes ravaged by 
the grasshopper plague, the name locust is properly ap- 
plied, and is given to the so-called Rocky Mountain 
locust, which is in fact a grasshopper. 
The locust of the tree country is a very different crea- 
ture. He is well known to the small boy, who, when he 
The periodical cicada: A, male of typical form, natural size; 
c d, genital hooks; g, singing apparatus. B, male of the small 
form. 
finds one on the ground, looks carefully at the markings 
on the upper surface of the thorax in order to learn 
whether during the next year peace or war will pre- 
vail over the earth. If on the thorax are markings 
wMch look like the letter W, the boy knows that the 
next year will be one of wars, and gravely announces this 
fact to his young companions, who, with him, speculate 
as to what countries will be involved. The small boy 
manufactures from a straight piece of wood, some 
twisted horsehair, the thick glass about the mouth of a 
bottle and a bit of parchment a musical instrument 
which he calls a "locust," and by means of which a 
Pupal galleries of the cicada: a, front view; e, orifice; h, section; 
c, pupa awaiting time of change; d, pupa ready to transform. 
sound very much like that produced by the insect is 
made. 
Since the locusts live chiefly in the tree tops and are 
rarely seen except when dead or dying they are much 
less well known than many other insects, and indeed 
most people have very little notion of what the creature 
is that makes the loud, long drawn out and droning 
sound that comes from this insect in the late summer^ 
The sound is caused by a peculiar apparatus possessed 
only by the male locust, and situated beneath the 
wings in large cavities at the base of the abdomen. 
These are two large parchment-like sacks, ribbed and 
gathered into many plaits and folds, and when the air 
is driven with great force against these plaited surfaces 
the vibrations caused produce the loud, penetrating, shrill 
sound with which we are all so familiar. Other species 
of locust in other lands make even more noise than any 
•Hemipterous, "half -winged." 
tOct. ^, 
best, is found from the United States far into South 
America. 
One of the most interesting of all these insects is that 
known as the seventeen-year locust, or cicada. The 
adult of this species is pferhaps less commonly seen 
than some others. It is medium in size, black in color, 
has red eyes, red and orange veins on the base and 
margin of both wings, and red bands on the abdomen. 
Its young spend no less than seventeen years in the 
ground before attaining theif adult form — the locusts 
that we know. 
When the female locust is ready to deposit her eggs 
she pierces the slender soft stem of some twig with her 
ovipositor,, making a series of parallel holes, in each of 
which one or more eggs are deposited. The young- 
larva, hatching a few weeks later, escapes from the hole 
in which the egg was inserted in the twig, runs around 
Ihe limb, falls to the ground, and at once burrows into it. 
Under the ground it forms for itself a little chamber 
close to some root, where it remains for the next 
thirteen or seventeen years, feeding on the root, growing 
slowly, and changing its covering from tim.e to time, 
preparing, as Mr. C. L. Marlatt says, "for a few weeks 
only of the society of its fellows and the enjoyment of 
the warmth and brightness of the sun, and the fragrant 
air of early summer. During this brief period of aerial 
life it attends actively to the needs of continuing its 
species. It is sluggish in movement, rarely taking wing, 
and seldom if ever takes food. For four or five weeks the 
CO 7> c cL 
Egg nest of the cicada; a, a recent puncture, front view; b, same, 
.surface removed to show arrangement of eggs, from above; c, side 
view; d, egg cavity exposed after eggs are removed, and showing 
the sculpture left by the ovipositor, all enlarged. 
male sings his song of love and courtship, and the female 
busies herself for a little longer, perhaps in the placing 
of the eggs which are to produce the subsequent gen- 
eration thirteen or seventeen years later. At the close 
of its short aerial existence the cicada falls to the ground 
again, perhaps within a few feet of the point from which 
it issued, there to be dismembered and scattered about." 
For the next seventeen years after its escape from 
the egg it lives in the earth, feeding on the juices of the 
roots of various trees. When the time comes for it to 
assume wings, it slowly digs its way to the surface and 
emerges, an odd-looking, horn-colored, wingless crea- 
ture, with long, sharply hooked legs. Now, if the weather 
is fair, the maturing insects climb up, often in consider- 
able numbers, on the stems of trees or the posts of 
fences, and digging their claws into the wood or bark 
remain there until the skin of the back splits lengthwise, 
and then the winged creature within creeps out of the 
horny covering which remains attached to the wood. 
The locust, now mature, hangs for a time on its perch, 
until it has become dry, and then uses its wings to fly 
away to the tree tops. 
Almost every child has found clinging to the trees the 
very curiously shaped cases in which the pupse of this 
insect emerges from the ground, and there are few 
natural objects about which more questions are asked 
than these. It may be said also that there are few about 
which so little information can be given by adult men 
and women as these. 
Some time before these pupse come out of the ground 
prepared to shed their cases and to change to the perfect 
insect, they have come near to the surface and may 
sometimes be found under stones, sticks and rails lying 
on the ground. Sometimes when the season for the 
change takes place, on reaching the surface of the 
ground, they build curious shelters or houses, con- 
structed of clay or mud brought up from below the sur- 
face of the ground. These houses are sometimes an inch 
and a quarter in diameter, and the vertical chamber 
within may be five-eighths of an inch in diameter and 
four inches in length. The purpose of these houses has 
not been clearly understood, but within a few years 
Messrs. Benj. Lander and E. G. Love, of New York, 
have investigated this subject, and have given what ap- 
pears to be the true explanation of the building of these 
chambers. They seem to be formed usually where the 
soil is thin, and it is thought that when this shallow 
soil becomes heated in spring and early summer, the 
pupae, responding to the heat and coming prematurely 
to the surface, build these houses as a protection while 
awaiting maturity. 
Sometimes these houses are merely irregular lumps 
of soil; sometimes they are columns, quite regular, and 
having the appearance of being carefully made. It is to 
be noted that in some there is an orifice near the 
ground, through which the insect might escape, but 
more often the maturing insect breaks its way through 
the top of the chamber. If one of these chambers is 
injured before the insect is ready to escape it repairs 
the damage by bringing up pellets of mud, which it 
builds into the wall. 
The vast numbers in which these broods sometimes 
appear is shown by the observations of Mr. McCook, who 
counted under one tree 9.000 burrows from which insects 
had emerged, while under another the number of holes was 
estimated at 22,500. It is said that "about some of the 
trees the pupse shells became so numerous that they 
completely hid the ground. At dusk the sound of the 
many insects climbing up the tree trunks was quite 
audible." Sometimes the branches of trees and shrubs 
are so covered with the insects as to bend down by their 
weight; and yet it is not known that these adult insects 
