2 Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences 



Pupae were found as early as March 12 at Ramsey, northern 

 New Jersey, and a great many of them on April 23 near Rich- 

 mond, Staten Island. On May 10 Mr. Charles L. Pollard and I 

 found seventeen-year cicada pupae under many of the stones, etc., 

 on a wooded hillside along Matawan Creek, N. J., and there were 

 also a few cones among the leaves. 



On May 23 the cicadas commenced to emerge in numbers in 

 Mr. Chas. W. Leng's garden at West New Brighton, and on May 

 26 I heard a number of them singing in a grove of sweet gums 

 at Great Kills, Staten Island, and saw them: flying about. There 

 were many more males than females among those I examined at 

 this early date. 



On June 3 Mr. Leng and I went to West Point, N. Y., and in 

 company with Lieutenant-Colonel Wirt Robinson spent parts of 

 two days rambling about the woods. The most impressive sight 

 was the number of seventeen-year cicadas that occurred on the 

 mountain-side. Already they were suffering from the attacks of 

 the fungus so fatal to many of them, and numerous individuals, 

 both males and females, were seen with the tips of their abdomens 

 gone and showing the yellowish white cones of the fungus. A 

 pair was found in copulation on the fourth of June and an unfor- 

 tunate individual had become impaled on a stiff dead twig of a 

 flowering dogwood, which penetrated the back of its head between 

 the eyes and thus held it firmly, while its legs vainly clawed the 

 air. Every tree trunk where there were many cicada pupje skins 

 showed some accidents whereby many of the insects were made 

 permanent cripples. Many also failed to get out of their pupal 

 skins, and died clinging to the trunks of trees and other vegeta- 

 tion. We saw many creatures feeding on the cicadas and among 

 them a carabid beetle, Pterostichus lucuhlandus Say, which was 

 pulling a dead one along on a sidewalk after the manner of an ant. 



On June 16 near Willow Brook, Staten Island, and also near 

 Westerleigh, I found the form cassinii. This form was also 

 found by Mr. Charles P. Benedict, who collected it in consider- 

 able numbers about his home at West New Brighton. Mr. Isaac 



