—123— 
Cicada septendecim in 1889. 
Before and on receipt of this number of Enromotocica AMERICANA 
many of our readers in the Eastern and Middle States will no doubt have 
heard the song of that most interesting of our North American insects— 
the Periodical Cicada. To anticipate inquiries regarding this insect we 
desire to state that the Cicadas of the present year belong to the 17-year 
brood VIII, according to the enumeration introduced by Dr. C. V. Riley 
in his rst Missouri Report. This brood is a well-established one, and 
has been recorded in the year 1786, 1804, 1821, 1838, and 1855. There 
is further strong probability that this is the brood referred to by Morton 
in his ‘‘Memorial” as occurring in Plymouth, Mass., in 1633 (see 
Harris, Treatise etc., p. 207, ed. Flint). Its re-appearance in 1872 has 
no doubt been observed in many localities but, strangely enough, there 
do not seem to be any records thereof in the more accessible literature, 
and no one has gone into the trouble of collecting the records —if there 
be any—from the agricultural papers and similar sources. The extent 
of this brood, as compiled from all available sources, is given by Dr. 
Riley as follows: ‘‘in the south-eastern part of Massachusetts ; across 
Long Island ; along the Atlantic coast to Chesapeake Bay, and up the 
susquehanna River at least as far as to Carlisle in Pennsylvania; also in 
Kentucky, at Kanawha in (West) Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio, on the 
Ohio river.” 
The Cicadas reported in 1855 from Buncombe and McDowell 
counties, North Carolina, have apparently been lost sight of, and it is 
still doubtful whether they should be referred to this 17-year brood VIII 
or the 13-year brood XVIII, both having appeared simultaneously in 
1855. From the localities given by Dr. Riley for the brood XVIII it 
appears highly probable that these Cicadas belong to this 13-year brood 
XVIII rather than to the 17-year brood VIII. 
At any rate the entomologists and their correspondents—no matter 
_ whether or not these understand anything of entomology—could do very 
much this year to more fully ascertain the extent of this brood and to 
clear up the doubtful points concerning the same, by looking out for, 
and recording all reports on the appearance of Cicadas or ‘‘ Locusts” as 
they are popularly termed. The knowledge of the various broods of the 
Periodical Cicada is now sufficiently advanced to enable us to eliminate 
all untrustworthy reports resulting from a confusion of the Cicadas with 
the true ‘‘Locusts” (Grasshoppers) or with the various other non- 
periodical species of Cicada. he Bes: 
_~ 
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