76 
THE PERIODICAL CICADA. 
or nearly so, within two or three years. With fruit trees and nursery 
stock, on the other hand, and especially on newly cleared ground or in 
the vicinity of forests or groves where 
the Cicada abounds, the injury is apt 
to be very considerable. 
The following extract from a letter 
from Mr. William G. Wayne, of Seneca 
Falls, K Y., illustrates the injury some- 
times experienced. Eeferring to the 
Hudson Eiver Valley brood appearing 
in 1826, he says: "They destroyed the 
fruitage of the orchards almost com- 
pletely. Nearly all the tender brauches 
of the trees were so wounded in the 
deposit of the eggs that they broke 
from the main stems in the following 
year and fell to the ground, thus com- 
pletely denuding the trees of their fruit- 
bearing branches." 1 
Peach, pear, and apple trees suffer 
most, and even grapevines are often 
badly injured. With fruit trees in vig- 
orous condition and growing rapidly, 
however, the wounds heal in a few 
years so that often the 
scars can scarcely be 
detected, but, as 
shown by Mr. A. D. 
Hopkins, with recently 
transplanted trees, the 
growth of which is 
slow, and with the 
fruiting and terminal 
branches of old trees 
which lack vigor, the 
wounds do not heal 
often for many years. 
Another form of injury has been charged to this 
insect by some of the earlier writers, viz, that after 
filling the twigs with her egg clusters the female com- 
pletely or partly severs it, causing it to break off and 
die. This opinion is totally without foundation in fact, 
and is undoubtedly based partly on the observation 
that many twigs are broken by the winds and partly 
on a confusion of the work of the Cicada with that of certain oak- 
pruning beetles, which after ovipositing in the branches, cut them 
Fig. 30.— Egg punctures of Cicada : a, twig 
showing recent punctures, from front and 
side, and illustrating manner of break- 
ing: b, twig showing older punctures. 
with retraction of bark and more fully 
displaying the arrangement of libers — 
natural size (after Riley). 
Fig. 31.— Twig show- 
ing scars from 
punctures after the 
second year (after 
Riley). 
Lintner, Second Eeport, p. 177. 
