To some extent the confusion between cicadas and locusts exists today; cicadas are commonly called locusts. The term "locust" is correctly applied only to certain species of grasshoppers. Migratory locusts, which comprise one of these species, ruined crops in Egypt in Biblical times. They still damage crops in that country and in many other parts of the world. Even when the periodical cicada is not confused with some other insect, its appearance in overwhelming numbers arouses fear that crops will be destroyed. But the cicada does not feed on foliage of any kind. If the adults feed at all, they do so by inserting their beaks in bark and sucking juice. Although the adults cause no feeding damage, the adult females make injurious punctures in twigs and limbs of trees and bushes with their egg-laying apparatus. A false belief that is much less widely held today than formerly is that the distinct black =W= toward the outer end of the front wings foretells war. The mark is a characteristic of the species, and is produced by deeper pigmentation of the veins. The cicada cannot sting, and any story is mythical that tells of cicadas poisoning fruit by stinging it. How Cicadas Develop Using the blades of a curved, sawlike egg-laying apparatus on the end of the abdomen, the female cicada punctures the bark of a twig and makes a pocket in the wood. In the pocket she lays 24 to 28 eggs in 2 rows. She then moves forward, cuts another pocket, and lays more eggs. She continues this process until 5 to 20 pockets have been made in the twig. The pockets are placed close together in a straight row. Sometimes they form a continuous slit 2 or 3 inches long. Moving from one twig to another, a cicada lays a total of 400 to 600 eggs. The eggs are laid in twigs and small branches of a wide variety of trees and plants. They hatch in 6 to 7 weeks. The immature insects are called nymphs. [Illustration: Section through egg punctures showing rows of eggs About 5 times natural size.] The newly hatched nymphs fall to the ground and burrow until they find suitable roots, from which they suck juice. This is the beginning of a 17- or 13-year period of underground existence. Most of the nymphs are 18 to 24 inches beneath the surface. [Illustration: Nymph ready for transformation.] [Illustration: Adult beginning to issue from nymphal skin.] [Illustration: Adult nearly free from nymphal skin.] [Illustration: Freshly transformed adult.] By spring of the 17th or 13th year the nymphs are fully grown. The transformation to the adult stage of the life cycle is soon to occur. Several weeks before emerging from the ground, the nymphs start burrowing upward. When they have burrowed to about an inch beneath the surface, they stop and await the proper time to continue.