Brood X of the seventeen year or periodical locust made its appearance in 1919. In the mountain regions around Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, they swarmed at their best and we made a number of trips into the valleys and interviewed them. They began to appear during the latter part of May and were at their height during early June. At that time almost every tree and plant that covered the landscape held hundreds of them, they were perched there in rows or massed like a mob, some crawling, some resting, everywhere "locusts."
The noise-call it a song if you wish-of the males could be heard continuously from daylight till dark, louder and more intense during the hottest parts of the days. We collected numbers of the insects for study, took notes and records on the "brood" and made the photographs. A farmer stopped his work and eyed us curiously, and advised us that it was a dangerous matter to handle "locusts" as their sting was poisonous and deadly. We soon demonstrated the fallacy of this supposition, which is general in many places, by handling them without harmful results. All they could do was to flutter their wings in protest, or if the specimen happened to be a male, let out a squawk of indignation or fear that would be somewhat disconcerting to the uninitiated.
We found that in certain damp areas the emerging pupae built chimneys up around their burrows to a height of several inches while in the hard ground the holes, aboutt three-eighths of an inch in diameter, were level with the surface of the surroundings. Shortly after the time of egg-laying had passed we found the ground strewn with dead "locusts" or fragments of their bodies. What a harvest for the little creatures that lurk in the brush, mice and chipmunks, the ants and other scavengers that clean up Nature's floor after the birds had taken their toll from the tree tops. For a locust year is a time of feasting for a surprising array of creatures.
Besides the various small insectivorous birds that may now forego their normal constant quest for tiny game in the face of this unwonted abundance, a host of others now prey on the restless hosts. Crows gorge themselves and their nestlings with the cicadas, and even the hawks deign to glean them from the branches. In some localities domestic fowls scarcely need other food while this supply holds out, and even dogs and cats relish the tasty morsels. But even such vast hordes must come to an end, and the chirring; gradually subsides. Soon all will have disappeared, but leaving to the future a vast progeny that will go through a similar process with the climax that comes in their lives seventeen years later.
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