86 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



of an hour, the females then being very common and nymphs issuing 

 from the ground in immense numbers; on June 14th the insects 

 made such a din that they could be heard for almost a mile, and 

 at that time no eggs had been deposited; June 18th the Cicadas 

 were pairing, there were no signs of diminished numbers, and two 

 or three collectors could have easily captured 20,000 specimens 

 in a few hours. The work of natural enemies was very evident 

 and in some places Cicada wings were so thick that they covered 

 the ground. The branches of the trees were full of blackbirds, 

 orioles, bobolinks and sparrows, which undoubtedly had been feeding 

 on the insects, and hundreds of birds were to be seen flying over 

 the orchard. June 25th the Cicadas had entirely disappeared 

 and no evidences of oviposition in twigs or branches were to be found, 

 this probably being due to the early destruction of the insects by 

 birds, other natural enemies or possibly by the excessive rains. 



Onondaga county. Onondaga Valley. Cicadas were reported by 

 Mr Grant Hitchings as less numerous than during the past two 

 visitations. They caused considerable injury in earlier years by 

 depositing eggs in the smaller twigs, but there was little evidence 

 of such damage the past season. The Cicadas were apparently 

 much more numerous on the Indian reservation than any other 

 area in this valley (P. J. Parrott, Geneva). 



Syracuse. Prof. Charles W. Hargitt, of Syracuse University, 

 states that in 1899 he had occasion to study with some care the 

 local occurrence of the insect and then it seemed evident that the 

 brood was declining in numbers and becoming more erratic in 

 its distribution. This, he adds, was much more evident in 1916, 

 the insects in and about Syracuse being one-tenth as numerous 

 as in 1899. 



Observations by Prof. W. M. Blackman and H. H. Stage, both 

 of the State College of Forestry, Syracuse, may be summarized 

 as follows: 



Numerous nymphs were uncovered in the spring and early summer 

 of 191 5, when the College of Forestry built a road through the tract 

 of woods at the experiment station near Rockwell Springs. The 

 nymphs were so numerous that in places every shovelful of dirt 

 taken from two to four feet below the ground contained from six 

 to a dozen specimens. During field trips in early May 19 16, nymphs 

 were observed in their burrows and under large stones and logs. 

 Emergence and transformation began the last week in June. At 

 this time skins were becoming rather numerous on trees and shrubs 

 in the region south of the city. Cicadas were reported as present 



