By Susan Milius
The bit that everybody missed was hardly hidden. Male cicada choruses swell to thousands—tens of thousands—and flirt with the subtlety of jets shrieking in for a landing. And thousands of charmed females respond.
When periodical cicadas emerge, once every 13 or 17 years, local outdoor restaurants languish. People threaten to move or go mad. The din has inspired commentary from the greats of natural history such as Charles Darwin, as well as from just about every local newspaper reporter in search of a spring feature.