80 
THE PERIODICAL CICADA. 
and filling 1 of the double egg nest, some forty-five minutes. During the 
cutting of the fissure the ovipositor made about eighty strokes per 
minute, and after four chambers were made the female would indulge 
in a short rest. 
The number of nests made in a single twig varies from four or five to 
fifteen or twenty, the latter number being not at all unusual, and as 
many as fifty egg nests in a line, each containing fourteen to twenty 
eggs, have been found in a single limb. The punctures are often 
made so close to each other that they sometimes run together, so as to 
form a continuous slit for 2 or 3 inches. 
The Cicada passes from one limb or from one tree to another until 
she has exhausted her store of eggs, which have been estimated to num- 
ber from four to six hundred. By the time the egg-laying is completed 
the female becomes so weak from her incessant labor that she falls to 
the ground and perishes or soon becomes a victim to her various natural 
enemies. 
THE GROWTH AND HATCHING OF THE EGGS. 
The eggs remain in the twigs for six or seven weeks after being 
deposited. Professor Potter was one of the first to determine this 
rather unusually long egg period by marking certain egg clusters and 
watching them until the young larvre were disclosed. He reports that 
from eggs deposited on the 5th of June he witnessed the hatching of 
the young on the 28th of July. This statement is also corroborated by 
Dr. Smith. Miss Morris and others record a shorter period, and there 
is undoubtedly considerable variation due 
to weather conditions, but the normal 
period, as shown by the abundant records 
Fig. 34. — Egg, much enlarged, showing- 
young about to be disclosed (original). 
of this office and many observers, since 
those noted, ranges, as stated, from six 
to seven weeks. 
Some interesting instances have been 
noted of retarded development of eggs in plants yielding gummy exuda- 
tions which had hermetically closed the nests from the outer air. Pro- 
fessor Eiley notes a case of this kind where the eggs remained sound 
and unhatched until the end of the year, long after the trees had shed 
their foliage. Except in the extreme south, where all of the periods 
are somewhat earlier, the eggs are deposited chiefly in the month of 
June and most abundantly about the middle of this month, and the 
hatching period ranges from the middle of July to the first of August. 
The egg is a very delicate, pearly- white object, about one-twelfth of an 
inch long, tapering to an obtuse point at either end and slightly curved. 
The shell is very thin and transparent, the form of the larval insect show- 
ing through some time before hatching. As is the case with most insects 
that oviposit in the living parts of plants, the eggs of the Cicada receive 
a certain nourishment from the plant and actually increase in size 
before hatching, by absolution of the juices from the adjacent plant cells. 
