![]() After they hook up - mate tail to tail (I saw many of them doing it) - their mission in this life is over, and they might as well just die.ĥ. It seems that it's the guy cicadas who are making all the racket they are, so to speak, hot and bothered, and are trying to attract the girls, so they are trying to outdo the other fellows with their frantic singing. Then they go about the business of mating, which they do tail to tail.Ĥ. They crawl up on trees and climb out of (slough off) their old skins, which they leave there clinging to the bark.ģ. Apparently they come up out of the ground after the weather is at 64º for awhile (so people told me).Ģ. ![]() The heat of the day, combined with the all-pervasive, shrill, sonic shrieking of the cicadas, made me feel as though I were having a surreal, transcendent experience.Īs I ran for the next two days (ultimately the insectile reverberations persisted for 15-25 miles), I came to learn quite a bit about the behavior of the cicadas:ġ. ![]() There must have been billions of those buggers in the Pennsylvania woods to make such an all-encompassing, cacophonous din. The raucous sound of the Ohio "locusts" too could be overpowering, and on hot days was quite annoying, at times almost intolerable when it reached a feverish pitch. We had similar creatures back in Ohio too, but we called them "seven-year locusts", though they made more of a buzzing, rasping sound than their screaming Pennsylvania cousins. They come every 17 years." Ah, now I understood. I said, "What is that loud, high-pitched ringing?" She laughed and answered, "Those are cicadas. I said, "Are you from around here?" "Yes," she replied. There were no houses visible for miles (apparently only a few people live on lanes here and there tucked back in the deep woods). I asked her if she was the postwoman, and she said yes. If there was one truly good thing about the loud noise I was hearing, it is that it masked my tinnitus for a while.įinally, at the bottom of a hill, after running about three or four miles, I spotted a woman in a car who was parked by the side of the road and had a box of mail on the passenger seat beside her. The penetrating resonance was loud and high-pitched, though not quite as high-pitched as my tinnitus, which I liken to a whistling tea kettle going off full blast in my ears. All around me were forests and woods, and the constant ringing seemed to be emanating from them. For awhile I thought it might be some mining operation underground, but I soon dismissed that theory because it lasted too long and I seemed to be enveloped in the noise. I couldn't tell where the loud, high-pitched sound was coming from. As I ran happily at a comfortable clip, I was puzzled by a shrill ringing noise that accompanied me all the way. I started out from Breezewood and headed for Bedford along Route 30 (Lincoln Highway). I was on a long run in the mountains of western Pennsylvania. Though what I heard was not language in any way, shape, or form, it did impart an overwhelming message. I was going to title this post "Insect vocalisms", but thought better of it, because I didn't want anyone to think I was claiming any kind of linguistic quality for the mind-boggling acoustic phenomenon that I witnessed on Saturday.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |