Feb., 1920 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society 1 7 



THE SEVENTEEN-YEAR CICADA ON LONG ISLAND, 

 N. Y., IN 1919. 



By Wm. T. Davis, Staten Island, N. Y. 



On February 24, 191 9, the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture issued circular 127 devoted to brood X of the seventeen- 

 year cicada, and brood 18 of the thirteen-year race, about to 

 appear from Pennsylvania to Illinois and southward. From 

 this publication we learn that brood X was reported on Long 

 Island, N. Y., in 1902, from Kings, Nassau and Suffolk counties. 

 Dr. E. P. Felt, New York State Entomologist in his eighteenth 

 report, 1902, p. 113, states as follows regarding the observations 

 made on Long Island by Mr. Chester Young : " The insects were 

 observed by him at Wantagh, Nassau Co., also between Massa- 

 pequa and Amityville, between Sayville and Oakdale, east of 

 Patchogue to Brookhaven, and also to the north of Medf ord and 

 Holtsville, and a small brood northeast of Riverhead, all in 

 Suffolk county." 



On June 9, 191 9, Mr. John T. Nichols wrote that cicadas were 

 " reported singing at Mastic last week and I heard them at one 

 point Saturday (a few).' This morning walking to the train, at 

 one place there were many on the ground, mostly more or less 

 eaten, some with bodies all gone. Found only two live whole 

 ones." The two specimens were kindly sent to the writer. On 

 June 30 Mr. Nichols wrote: "I have occasionally heard small 

 colonies at Mastic in the past several weeks, notably one in the 

 woodland there on June 28." 



Dr. Frank Overton wrote of the cicadas under date of Sep- 

 tember I, 1919: "I saw their effects in a small area on the South 

 Country Road just east of Carman's River, and my boy saw them 

 in the woods just east of Patchogue, but I have seen no other 

 evidence of them near Patchogue. They seem to have appeared 

 in spots." 



The New York Sun for June 16, 1919, stated that: "From 

 Wantage to Farmingdale and as far north as Central Park on 



