Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1888 — Seventeen-Year Locusts. [ARTICLE]

Seventeen-Year Locusts.

▲ oorrespodent of the Muscatine Journal rays this is the year for the seventeen-year locusts, and that they are due about May 25, not later than June 1. They are now near the surface of the ground, ready to emerge at the proper time. They come out of the ground in the evening, so soon as the sun has fairly set, and the bulk of them will have emerged by 9 o’clock. The unanimity with which all those which rise within a certain radius of a given tree crawl in a bee Uno to the trank of that tree is surprising. To see these locusts in such vast numbers out of subterranean holes, and crawling over the ground aH converging to a central point, and then in a steady, continuous stream clambering up the trunk of a tree and crawling out along the branches in every direction, is a sight not soon forgotten, and affords a tare opportunity of witnessing the natural instinct of insect life. The sight is most tatisfaetoriiy witnessed where there isa solitary or isolated tree. After crawling out to the ends of the branches, they fasten themselves to the twigs and leaves, generally in a horisontal position, and in about an hour after getting settled the shell or skin splits open down the middle and the winged insect comes forth a full fledged locust of a light color, which becomes darker as the night passes away. Shade trees will be covered with them, and their call of phar-r r-r-aoh will be heard all day long for about four weeks. They will disappear by the 4th of July, leaving as suddenly as they eame. but leaving their mark behind them in the innumerable dead twigs on all the trees.