Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/57

Rh as some naturalists have asserted. The top is closed, and the builder awaits within the signal to emerge, whereat it breaks through the top, or occasionally the side wall. Like a frontier pioneer, it leaves its house and moves on, joining the mighty procession of its migrant fellows. The huts stand empty in the silent cicada city, like an abandoned mining-town whose "boom has burst," or like the winter quarters of an army when the spring campaign calls afield.

Beneath the surface of the area occupied by our city brood, as shown by deep section cuttings, the earth was a network of crossing and interblending burrows. It would seem that the normal preference of the pupæ was each for its own ascension track. One fancies that this preference was fortified by a wholesome regard for safety, although no special signs of quarrelsomeness were seen. But they were wise enough to use a ready-made roadway when it fell convenient; for from many holes several individuals would issue.

Shortly after leaving the burrow the cicada's transformation occurs, which is only partial, not complete as with moths and butterflies. This is the pupa's emergence from its shell, and is technically known as the ecdysis. Fastening itself by its sharp claws, the pupa remains perfectly still for a little while. Then the hard outer skin begins to crack along the middle of the back. As the insect thus appears it is plump, white, and soft. When the forepart of the body is pushed out, it presents a grotesque figure, looking like a snow-white pupa mounted pickaback upon a yellow one. Next it begins to pull out its legs, first the front ones and then the hind ones, until at last the body is free from the tough case, which all the while clings to the tree. This process, which resembles the moulting of a spider or snake, is not without danger, for one will often find pupæ maimed or that had died during ecdysis.

These soft white objects are delicate and tempting morsels for the birds, which destroy quantities of them. Other enemies await to destroy them, even the domestic cat! Next door to my house a large church was being erected. A stray cat had taken up her abode underneath a wooden shanty built on one end of the lot as a tool-house; and she developed a taste for the emerging cicadas. She would watch until the insects had got out of their shells, and then snap up the white soft morsels and eat them with greedy relish. It seems a hard fate; but what is Nature to do with her superfluous children? Unless a vigorous check upon increase were provided, certain species would soon overrun the earth.

After emergence the cicada fastens itself at a little distance from its abandoned case, and then occurs a swift and striking change. The head becomes jet black. The body darkens into a dull yellow and rapidly takes upon itself a tough skin. On either side of the thorax, close up to the head, two little "buds" may be seen just after emergence. These are rudimentary wings. The juices of the white, plump body rapidly run into these winglets. They broaden and lengthen, pushing downward, until within the space of from eight to fifteen minutes they have