ALWAYS ON TIME

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 56, 15 September 1928, Page 20

ALWAYS ON TIME

A 17-YEARS-FEOM-EGG-TO-ADULT INSECT. The sudden appearance this summer of millions of large black cicadas in New York, New Jersey, and surrounding territories in the eastern United States, calls attention to one of the most startling phenomena to be found in the insect kingdom, says N. J. Burns in the "Illustrated London News." Overnight the bushes and trees have been covered with countless brown . shells, from which have emerged these handsome insects, creatures with bright red eyes, shining black bodies,, and clear, sparkling wings over an inch and a half in length.. Known to science as Magicicada septendecini, they are in reality bugs with sucking mouth-parts, and hot locusts, as often thought by early observers, who, no doubt, were influenced by their appearance overnight in euch huge numbers. These remarkable.insects require seventeen years to grow from egg to adult, and always emerge exactly on time. The reason they require seventeen years, and not ten, twenty, or any other conventional number is. as much a mystery as their absolute adherence to seventeen. It is never sixteen or oven eighteen, This year, if one happened to be out for a walk at dusk late in May or early June near New York, a peculiar rustling and pattering on the ground might have aroused attention. Upon closer examination the stroller would have seen multitudes of brownish pupae crawling out of little holes or mud streets and scrambling up the nearest tree trunks and plant stems. With its hook-like forelegs, each of these weird creatures will fasten itself securely, and, as the night hours pass, the skin will split up the back to allow a white slug-like animal to, literally, come out of itself. . As it hangs head downward, two little pads gradually expand into wings. Later it rights itself, often climbing up the stem; while, in the meantime, the wings reach their full development. ■ The delicate waxy-white body, with its ruby eyes and black spots on the thorax between the gauze-like wings fringed with orange, is a sight never to be forgotten. Tho white body slowly turns to black; the wings dry and become firm enough to sustain the insect on short flights. During the few weeks of his adult existence, the male sings his song;of-court-ship' and love—a monotonous "Phar-r-r----aoh, Phar-oh, oh, oh." After mating, the female busies herself inserting whito eggs into the stems of plants with her sharp ovipositor. Six weeks later the eggs hatch and the yonug: larvae, ant-like in form and actions, fall to the ground and quickly barrow down out of sight, each to form a little subterranean chamber above some rootlet. There it will remain through frozen winters and hot summers, in absolute solitude, feeding on plant, juices and slowly gaining in size, to emerge again after the exact seventeen-year period. The adult cicada will spend a few weeks in the air and sunshine, fulfil its destiny, then fall again to the ground, worn out with ceaseless activity, there to be dismembered and scattered, the i'ood oi! ants and birds. The English sparrow, introduced to the. United States many years ago and now common around New York, is one of the most active bird enemies of the cicadas. It has also been noticed that chickens require much less feeding when these insects are abundant. The. first settlers of New England recorded a visitation of "locusts" in 1634. Exact records which have been kept for many years by the United States Department of Agriculture disclose the presence of some thirty distinct broods appearing in various parts of the country in different years. Tho large one recently, present' in and near New York known -as Bropd 2, while another small group, known as Brood 6, appeared there in 191-5, and will come again in 1932. In some, of the Southern.States, a number of thir-teen-year broods have been discovered, and, while these insects do not differ in the least -from- their ' seventeen-year cousins, tho schedule of thirteen is just as rigidly observed. The advanco of civilisation is slowly exterminating this interesting cicada, which, in spite of its numbers, does but little damage to crops and other plants, save the occasional injuring of young trees by its egg-lay-ing habits. There is good material for. speculation in tracing back the history of this insect through the years of its periodic recurrences. We may fancy the early colonists listening to its shrill notes in the primeval forests, where now asphalt roads cover tho wood paths. Indeed, we may even imagine the primitive Indian regarding it with wonder, perhaps with fear, and sometimes, as wo read in early accounts, roasting the soft,' newly emerged bodies for a woodland delicacy.