The salamander feeds on small insects, but I have never seen them eat in captivity. That they may be safely transported and established in new homes has been proved, for a gentleman from Seattle, Wash., who was visiting at our Pike County, Pa., camp, became so deeply interested in these creatures he took a pail of them across the continent, and at last accounts they were living in his garden, to all appearances quite as comfortably as in their native woods.
On the trunks of some of the great trees you are passing you may possibly see a number of queer, semi-transparent shells. These are the cast-off armor of
The Cicadas
Locusts you will probably call them, but that name rightly belongs to quite another insect. Perfect in every detail, even to the great bulging eyes, the cicada’s little coat of mail clings to the tree with its six pairs of claws like a live creature, and only a split down its back shows its emptiness and tells how the cicada crept from the old into a newer and fuller life.
The shells one usually finds belong to quite a large black and green insect, one of the more common species of cicada. This is called the dog-day harvest fly, and requires but two years to develop, while the smaller red and black variety is known as the “seventeen year locust,” because it spends seventeen years of its life underground before it reaches maturity. All this while it bears the name of nymph. A pretty name for the young insect, isn’t it?
The nymph began life as an egg which its mother deposited, with a number of others, in a slit she made in a twig of a tree. For six weeks it lay snugly in its narrow bed, then came forth a tiny white creature, with little legs which carried it about in a lively manner. Its mouth was simply a hollow tube which would change into jaws later on. For a while the nymph was happy in its new-found life, then
Cicada and Shell. suddenly a longing for quiet seemed to come over it and it dropped to the ground, there to bury itself in the earth, which was to be its home for many years.
Down in the mysterious darkness, in that busy world where so much we do not understand is going on, the little nymph grew very slowly for a year, nourished by the juices of the roots he found near him and which he sucked up through his tube-like mouth. Then he shed his first skin for another, which gave him greater freedom for further growth. After a time this skin was also discarded, another and another, until, we are told, six times his garment was changed while yet he was deep in the earth, with no one to see and admire his new attire. Then when seventeen long years were passed and his days of preparation were accomplished, he dug his way up into a new world at the dictate of a new impulse, and one evening he emerged to find himself in a goodly company of his kind, all intent upon reaching a still greater height. The tree under which he had lived so long was his goal, and up this he made his way for some distance, then, forcing his little claws into the bark, he clung to his place awaiting his final transformation.
Presently his nymph-skin opened down the back and the cicada, a nymph no longer, crawled slowly out. White again as when he first saw the light, except for two black spots on his back, soft and helpless he clung anew to the bark. At first his wings were so much a part of his body you would have thought he had none, but almost immediately they began to unfold and grow, becoming transparent and firm as he waved them slowly back and forth. During the night his color was marvellously changed from white to black and red, and the next morning came his season of rejoicing. With all faculties fully alive, he joined the chorus of the other cicadas and the woods were made to resound with their high, rasping notes.