LIBRARY

814 COLLEGE ENTOMOLOGY
away quickly, will feign death to escape detection. In such cases they do not
regain activity for many minutes.
The male is distinguished from the female by the redeagus or dorsal, apical,
irregular, and erect intromittent organ whereas the female has a large, spikelike,
protrusile ovipositor. In feeding the adults frequently and forcibly discharge
jets of watery honeydew which may fall in considerable quantities from
trees heavily infested by these insects.
The females are attracted by the song of the males, and when they alight
close by, the males cease singing and begin a silent courtship. The elongated
eggs are normally inserted into the stems of small plants, the seed stalks of annuals
and perennials, and mostly into the hard, dead or living twigs and
branches of shrubs and trees. In ovipositing the female chisels downwards
through the bark and into the hard wood or pith and inserts the eggs in more
or less continuous rows as shown in the accompanying illustration.
When the eggs hatch, in a very short time or in from 2 to 6 weeks, the young
drop or crawl to the ground. They then begin a subterranean life. feeding upon
the roots of various plants. This period may require from 2 to 5 years in most
species or from 13 to 17 years in the case of the famous seventeen-year locust
or periodical cicada, Magicicada septendecim (Linn.) (Tibicina), of the middle
and eastern United States. In the middle and northern reaches of its distribution
17 years are required to complete the life cycle, while in the southern states
only 13 years are necessary.
The larvre or nymphs are most peculiar-looking insects, pale in color, awkward
in movements. and characterized chiefly by the large, toothed, fossorial
forelegs. We can gain little from a description without first examining the
accompanying illustration.
When fully matured, the nymphs emerge from the soil, climb any convenient
shrub or tree, and attach themselves firmly, after which the dorsal line in the
integument parts and the adults emerge to feed, sing, mate, oviposit, and perish
before the coming of winter.
The family is composed of some 1,500 species and is cosmopolitan in distribution.
In Great Britain there is but a single species, Cicadetta montana
Scopoli, which occurs throughout much of middle Europe. Altogether there are
less than a dozen common species in all of Europe. According to Myers (1929)
the cicada of the classics and of the eminent French entomologist Jean Henri
Fabre (1823-1915) is Tibicen plebeia Scopoli. These two species, together with
T. hcematodes Scopoli and Cicada orni Linn., are the commonest European
representatives. T. hrematodes is known as the vineyard cicada. It starts
to sing at the beginning of the grape harvest early in August and stops by
tradition on Holy Friday in the middle of October.
One of the most remarkable and interesting species is the Chinese blistering
cicada or Chu-ki,l Huechys sanguine a (DeGeer), of China, Japan, and southern
Asia. It is also called the "red medicinal cicada" because of its brilliant red
1 According to Gaines Liu (1930), Chu-ki is a fulgorid, Lycroma delicatula White, which iii
the real medicinal insect and not the cicada. as has been thought for many years.