14 
THE PERIODICAL CICADA. 
Fig 
Seven- 
teen-year Cica- 
da, side view of 
$ to show beat, 
a, and oviposi- 
tor, b. (After 
Riley.) 
into the wound which it makes, and I have been unable to trace a single 
case where eggs were found in the flesh. All such accounts have proved 
to be fabrications, and the straightforward report which Mr. Y. T. 
Chambers, of Covington, Ky., gave in the August (1868) number of the 
American Naturalist, of a negro being stung on the foot 
by a Cicada, proved, after all, to be a mistake, for " Mr. 
Winston did not see the insect with its instrument in 
situ ; " (3) the three following facts, which are reliable, 
prove that stinging, in the usual sense of the term, by 
this instrument, is almost impossible : First, Mr. William 
Muir, associate editor of Colmari's Rural World, carefully 
lifted a female from off a tree while she was yet in the act 
of ovipositing, and as carefully placed her on his little 
finger, holding it as near as possible iu the same direction 
and position as the branch grew from which she was taken. 
She instinctively endeavored to continue ovipositing, and, 
holding firmly to his finger, tried again and again to insert 
the ovipositor, but without the least success, for it could 
not make the least impression on the soft and yielding 
flesh, but continually slipped from one side to the other- 
Second, it is recorded that Mr. Peter A. Brown, of Philadelphia, Pa., 
himself inflicted a puncture with the ovipositor, several times, upon his 
hand, without experiencing any more pain than that produced by the 
prick of a pin or any other pointed instrument, and that no swelling 
ensued. Third, Dr. Hartman, of Pennsylvania, introduced some of the 
moisture from the ovipositor into an open wound and it caused no in- 
flammation whatever. 
By the beak, or haustellum. — The beak (Fig. 8, a) is an organ 
which both sexes of the Cicada possess, and by which they take their 
nourishment. I have seen them insert it into and extricate it from the 
branches of different trees, and know that the operation is quite rapid, 
and that the instrument must be quite sharp and strong. All the more 
authentic cases of stinging indicate this to be the instrument,* and it 
is quite likely that, just as the sting of a bee will affect some persons 
nigh unto death, and have no effect whatever on others, so the puncture 
*Mr. D. B. Wier, of Lacon, III., who well knows the difference between the male 
and female Cicada, recollects distinctly that when they were there in 1854 he was 
stung in the finger by the male, the sting not causing very severe pain. 
Mr. R. T. Parker, of Saint James, Phelps County, Missouri, an intelligent fruit 
grower, who has given some time to the study of insects, informed me that he was 
stnng on the neck by a male Cicada, evidently with the beak, and that the stiug was 
not so painful as that of a bee. 
Dr. M. M. Kenzie, of Centerville, Reynolds County, Missouri, has communicated 
the fact that Frank Smith, aged fourteen years, living on Henpeck, in the lower part 
of Reynolds County, was stung by a Cicada on the back of the left hand. The wound 
healed by first intention, and the next morning there was onlj a black clot about the 
size of a pin's head, to mark its place, with scarcely any swelling. 
