212 
HEMIPTERA. 
from one end to the other, upon which she removes to a 
little distance, and begins to make another nest to contain 
two more rows of eo;ofs. She is about fifteen minutes in 
preparing a single nest and filling it with eggs ; hut it is 
not unusual for her to make fifteen or twenty fissures in the 
same limb; and one observer counted fifty nests extending 
along in a line, each containing fifteen or twenty eggs in 
two rows, and all of them apparently the work of one in¬ 
sect.^ After one limb is thus sufficiently stocked, the Cicada 
goes to another, and passes from limb to limb and from tree 
to tree, till her store, which consists of four or five hundred 
eggs, is exhausted. At length she becomes so weak by her 
incessant labors to provide for a succession of her kind, as 
to falter and fall in attempting to fly, and soon dies. 
Although the Cicadas abound most upon the oak, they 
resort occasionally to other forest-trees, and even to shrubs, 
when impelled by the necessity for depositing their eggs, and 
not unfrequently commit them to fruit-trees, Avhen the latter 
are in their vicinity. -Indeed there seem to be no trees or 
shrubs that are exempted from tlieir attacks, except those of 
the pine and fir tribes, and of these even the white cedar is 
sometimes invaded by them. The punctured limbs languish 
and die soon after the eggs which are placed in them are 
hatched; they are broken by the winds or by their own 
weight, and either remain hanging by the bark alone, or fall 
with their withered foliage to the ground. In this way 
orchards have suffered severely in consequence of the in¬ 
jurious punctures of these insects. 
The eggs are one twelfth of an inch long, and one six¬ 
teenth of an inch through the middle, but taper at each 
end to an obtuse point, and are of a pearl-white color. The 
shell is so thin and delicate that the form of the included 
insect can be seen before the egg is hatched, which occurs, 
according to Dr. Potter, in fifty-two days after it is laid, but 
* See also my communication in Downing’s Horticulturist, Vol. III. p. 278, 
Dec., 1848. 
