The Seventeen-Year Locust Appears 
T HE Periodical Cicada, popularly but erroneously 
called the seventeen-year Locust is due to appear in 
great numbers during- this summer, and no insect presents 
a more interesting phenomena for study than 
this, nor is the subject of more groundless fears 
on the part of our rural population. 
This insect, peculiar to the American 
continent, is remarkable in its ado¬ 
lescent period, spending seventeen 
years in obscurity in a subterranean 
state, during all of which time its 
presence is unsuspected by the ma¬ 
jority of people. It makes its pres¬ 
ence known only when in unlimited 
numbers it marches forth, all members 
of the species attaining their maturity 
in almost the same moment. 
Many people unacquainted with its habits 
are needlessly alarmed at its appearance, 
and have visions of vast devastation to be 
wrought by its activities, when, in fact, the 
damage done is infinitesimal. 
The period of its aerial ex¬ 
istence is very brief, yet dur¬ 
ing this time it leaves unmis¬ 
takable evidences of its ac¬ 
tivity, as seen in the many 
eggs deposited in slits made in 
twigs and branches of sur¬ 
rounding shrubbery, a work 
accomplished accompanied by 
an incessant humming: on the 
part of the males. 
The damage done is, how¬ 
ever, very slight, and a little 
pruning of the branches con¬ 
taining the eggs will forestall 
any ill effects that might occur. 
More or less of these insects 
appear every year, due to the 
fact that there are several 
broods scattered over various 
sections of the United States, 
but careful observation shows 
that the recurrence of the main 
group is regular, every seven¬ 
teen years in the northern 
states and every thirteen years 
in the southern states. 
This variation in time has 
opened the question as to 
whether the thirteen-year lo¬ 
cust of the southern states is a 
separate variety, or whether 
the difference in climate has¬ 
tens its growth, but since the 
two varieties overlap in the 
same county along the boun¬ 
dary of the northern and 
southern states, it would seem 
to prove that the variation is not due so much to a differ¬ 
ence in climate, as to a decided difference in species. 
The reason for the seventeen-year larval 
life of the Cicada cannot be satisfac- 
torilly explained, though it seems like 
a provision of Nature to protect it 
from its many enemies in the form 
of parasites and insectivorous birds. 
The danger from birds, however, is very 
slight as their appearance is of such rare 
occurrence that birds do not come to know 
them as a steady article of diet. 
While many reports concerning the 
Cicada are untrustworthy, yet we have 
authentic records that as far back as 1634 
the swarm at Plymouth, Mass., was ob¬ 
served and noted by the Puritans, and a record 
of the recent swarm there in 1906 shows them 
as abundant at ever. 
In 1666 The Royal Society of London pub¬ 
lished the following concerning them : 
“A great observer who hath 
lived long in New England, 
did, upon occasion, relate to a 
friend of his in London where 
he lately was, that some few 
years since, there was such a 
swarm of a certain kind of in¬ 
sects in the English Colony 
that for the space of 200 miles, 
they poyson’d and destroyed 
all the trees of the country, 
there being found innumer¬ 
able holes in the ground, out 
of which those insects broke 
forth in the form of maggots, 
which turned into flyes, that 
had a kind of tail or sting, 
which they stuck into the tree, 
and thereby envenomed, and 
killed it.” ' 
We can see by the above 
that these insects were at least 
in the country when the early 
settlers arrived, and for cen¬ 
turies prior to this. 
Another writer has said: 
“Still more remotely one 
can picture its song, causing 
wonderment to the savage In¬ 
dians who attributed to it bale¬ 
ful influences, and yet, less 
dainty than their white fol¬ 
lowers, used the soft, newly- 
emerged Cicadas as food; or 
further back in time, when it 
had only wild animals as audi¬ 
tors. With these long-time 
measures, our brief periods of 
days, weeks, months and 
Even the foliage will be covered 
this month with the cast-off shells 
A flashlight photograph taken shortly after the emerging of the 
Cicada. The newly-born creamy-white insects are seen beside their 
discarded skins 
AN INTERESTING NATURAL PHENOMENON THAT HAS 
CICADA THAT SPENDS SEVENTEEN YEARS IN PREP 
AROUSED MANY GROUNDLESS FEARS —THE 
A RATI ON FOR SIX WEEKS ABOVE GROUND 
by D. Everett Lyon, Ph.D. 
Photographs by Robert A. Kemp 
( 429 ) 
