202 
IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCES. 
Sirrine, of the larger form approaching typical examples also 
from Worth county, collected by Mr. S. W. Beyer. 
It occurs somewhat commonly in the northwest part of the 
state and probably is responsible for some of the reports of 
seventeen year Cicada emanating from that quarter. Mr. E. 
D. Ball, a graduate of the Agricultural college and whose home 
is at Little Rock, Lyon county, states that it is found quite 
abundantly throughout the prairie regions of the northwest 
part of the state and that it was more abundant in the 70’s, 
before the prairies were broken up, than at present. He gives 
some interesting observations regarding its habits, the most 
striking being that it occurs on prairie land remote from tim- 
ber, thus indicating a habit quite different from the other mem- 
bers of the genus. He states that in herding cattle on the 
ranges years ago, he has seen them as many as four or five to 
the square rod. of grass in localities where the nearest trees 
were ten miles away and these only bush willows fringing a 
stream. During the summer of 1893 he carefully observed 
them in a lot in town. The lot was bordered on two sides by a 
double row of trees, box-elder and maples. At any time plenty of 
the cicades could be found or heard in the grass, but careful search- 
ing failed to find a single one or any indications of egg deposi- 
tion. They occur more abundantly in the rich upland grass at 
the foot of a hill or bordering a meadow, a situation equally 
favorable to the growth of certain prairie weeds, notably the 
‘^shoestring” or Lead plant, Amorplia canescens, which has a 
very tough woody stem, a plant which was particularly abun- 
dant in the lot above mentioned. The cicadas were frequently 
seen on this plant, but no eggs were found. They appear the 
latter part of June and only live for two or three weeks at 
most. 
The form of this species which occurs at Ames is much 
smaller and with more extensive orange markings than in the 
western forms ; it is by no means co mmon and no observations have 
been made as to its breeding habit here. It is so different from 
the larger Rocky Mountain form that were it not for the inter- 
mediate forms occurring throughout the range of the species 
as a whole, there would be little question as to its being recog- 
nized as distinct. This form agrees with the one described by 
Emmons as noveboracensis. 
