Cicada Minibook

Cut out book, copy poem onto one of the lined pages, and write information about the Cicada (or a specific kind) on the other lined box. Staple pages together at top, with “The Cicada” page as cover.

Once a worm, a thing that crept On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept. And such is man—soon from his cell of clay To burst a seraph in the blaze of day.

This is the cover page.

The Cicada

The Cicada, improperly called Locust, contains a number of species. It is a harmless, lovely creature, and has been celebrated for its song from the most ancient times. Indeed it was regarded by all as the happiest as well as the most innocent of animals. By both Greeks and Romans it was also considered as an excellent article of food, particularly the female before she had deposited her eggs; and Aristotle says of it, " Quo tempore gustu suavissimce sunt" —At which time they taste very sweet. The genus Cicada is found in all the temperate climates and warm countries of the globe. All have an bent snout, very short bristled antennae, four membrane wings, and six feet. The females have a long, horny ovipositor, and only the males possess the singing organ, which is an extended movable membrane on the under side of the abdomen, by the rapid vibration of which they produce their peculiarly loud and shrill sound. The females are all mute.

The females deposit many hundred eggs in the tender branches of trees, by slitting the bark with their horny, sharp-pointed ovipositor. Their eggs are white, flat, oval, and about the sixteenth of an inch in length. If the weather is favorable to them, the eggs are hatched in about six weeks, when the young ones leave the tree in the condition of larvae each one with a mouth and six strong feet, resembling the flea. They then retreat into the ground, where they feed on roots, for two years, after which time they come out of the ground, climb upon a fence or the trunk of a tree, burst their transparent shell, and assume their perfect form as four-winged insects. They now mount in the air, and enjoy their short life, flying from branch to branch and from tree to tree, making music as they go, and in the brief term of four or five weeks fulfill their last destiny, to propagate their species. -Excerpt from The Life of North American Insects By Benedict Jaeger (public domain)