126 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



farther up to get into broad daylight. This is a mere conjecture, 

 and possibly wide of the mark. Certainly the occurrence of 

 cones in this particular spot does not answer the explanations 

 which have been offered heretofore to account for these curious 

 structures. 



The cicadas disappeared, even in the woods outside the city, 

 practically by about the 25th of June. ^ Eggs were very abundant 

 on the trees, and hatching did not begin to any extent before the 

 23d of July. A big transplanting of eggs was made from the 

 surrounding forests of the District to the Department grounds, 

 to afford material for studies in the development of the larvae. 

 The planting was made in the oak grove on the west side of the 

 Department grounds, where similar experiments had formerly 

 been in progress. 



AN EARLY RECORD OF THE PERIODICAL CICADA. 

 By C. L. MARLATT. 



earliest published account of the periodical Cicada which 

 has come under my own observation was brought to my atten 

 tion by Prof. E. A. Andrews, of the Johns Hopkins University, 

 Baltimore, Md. It is contained in Volume I, No. 8. p. 137, of 

 the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 

 published January S. 1666. The portion of the communication 

 relating to the Cicada is quoted below : 



" SOME OBSERVATIONS OF SWARMS OF STRANGE INSECTS AND 

 THE MISCHIEFS DONE BY THEM. 



"A great Observer, who hath lived long in New England* 

 did, upon occasion, relate to a Friend of his in London, where 

 he lately was, That some few years since there was such a Swarm 

 of a certain sort of Insects in that English Colony, that for the 

 space of 200 Miles they poisoned and destroyed all the Trees of 

 the Country 5 there being found innumerable little holes in the 

 ground, out of which those Insects broke forth in the form of 

 Maggots, which turned into Flies that had a kind of tail or 

 sting, which they stuck into the Tree, and thereby envenomed 

 and killed it." * * * 



The rest of the article referred to a plague of locusts (grass 

 hoppers) in Russia, with which the Cicada is confused. The 

 brood referred to here is very likely No. XIV, which appeared 

 in 1651. No other brood coincides with this narrative and 

 No. XIV not very closely, but as the quotation states the relation 



