Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 82, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1902 — Got One 17 Year Locust. Maybe Two. [ARTICLE]

Got One 17 Year Locust. Maybe Two.

It is necessary ts qualify our previous statement that there hre no seventeen year “locusts” in Jasper county, for A, F. Long has a veritable speoimen in his drug store. It was brought in by Levi Clouse, from a few miles south of town There being this one for sure, it is fair to assume that there are others; and C. G. Spitler is sure he heard one in bis grove, north of the railroad. They are very soaroe, however. They are like in shape, size and musical gifts to the “harvest fly” so often heard but 90 seldom seen here, every year in August. They are all oicadas, rightly oalled, but the 17 year species is separate from the yearly harvest fly. These 17 year oioadas, with their strange life history, are among the most marvellous facts in nature, And we have often wondered how the advocates of the evolution theory oan aooount, by any process of “natural selection,” "survival of the fittest” eto, for insects so different in their habits from anything else known in insect life.