REMEDIES AND PREVENTIVES. 107 
sluggish and averse to flight, so that they can easily he taken by hand. After a time 
some of the posterior rings of the abdomen fall away, revealing the fungus within. 
Strange as it may seem, the insect may, and sometimes does, live for a time in this 
condition. Though it is not killed at once, it is manifestly incapacited for propaga- 
tion, and therefore the fnngns may he said to prevent to some- extent the injury that 
would otherwise be done to the trees by these insects in the deposition of their • 
For the same reason, the insects of the next generation must he less numerous than 
they otherwise would he, so that the fungus may he regarded as a beneficial one. 
In Columbia County the disease prevailed to a considerable extent. Along the line 
of the railroad between Catskill and Livingston stations many dead Cicadas were 
found, not a few of which were filled by the fungoid mass. 
Professor Peck was not able to satisfy himself as to the time when 
the Cicada is attacked by this fungus, suggesting the possibility of its 
having entered the ground with the larva and slowly developed with 
its host, or perhaps entering the body of the papa at the moment that 
it emerges from the ground, with the third possibility of its developing 
annually in the Cicadas which appear every year, and becoming much 
more abundant, and therefore noticeable in the years of the appearance 
of the great swarms of periodical Cicadas. The latter supposition is 
unquestionably the correct explanation. Mr. A. W. Butler refers to 
this disease at some length in his notes on the Cicada in southern 
Indiana in 1885, and is of the opinion that nearly all of the male 
Cicadas which are not killed by birds and other enemies ultimately 
succumb to this disease. 
REMEDIES AND PREVENTIVES. 
THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE PROBLEM. 
In discussing this subject, it is well to be again reminded that the 
fears aroused by the i>resence of this insect when in great numbers are 
unquestionably out of all proportion to the real damage likely to be 
done. While they are most abundant in old and undisturbed forest 
tracts and confine their work for the most part to forest trees, it is true 
also that in parks and lawns, especially such as contain trees of the 
original forest growth or their natural and immediate successor-. 
the Cicadas sometimes appear in scarcely diminished numbers. This 
is true also of orchards located on cleared lands or in the vicinity 
of standing forests, and under such circumstances instances of fatal 
results to cherished plants or fruit trees are not uncommon. Notwith- 
standing the occasional instances of serious injury by the Cicada, it is 
probably still true that there is no other important injurious insect in 
this country that is responsible for so little serious damage in propor- 
tion to the fears aroused, and yet every recurrence of this insect calls 
forth the most anxious demands lor means of control or extermination. 
The exploitation of the facts concerning this insect is. therefore, more 
to allay such fears, which are largely groundless, and to supply the 
desire for information concerning it which its presence always arouses, 
than from the necessity of detailing elaborate precautionary measures. 
Lo< . rit.. pp. 19,20, 
