112 THE PERIODICAL CICADA. 
THE PERIODICAL CICADA IN LITERATURE. 
As would naturally be inferred of an insect as interesting as the 
periodical Cicada, the writings which have been devoted to it from the 
time of its first coming to the attention of the colonists to the present 
have been most voluminous in number and extent; much of this 
literature, however, is of a fugitive character and scattered through 
ephemeral publications not now obtainable. 
The earliest mention of this insect is that given in a work entitled 
"New England's Memoriall," by Nathaniel Moreton, printed at Cam- 
bridge, Mass., in 1669. 
The following transcription of this account, the original of which I 
have not seen, is taken from an editorial note to an article on the 
" Locust of North America" in the Barton Medical and Physical Jour- 
nal of 1804 (Vol. I, pp. 52-59). Referring to Moreton, the editor says: 
Speaking of a sickness which, in 1633, carried off many of the whites and Indians, 
in and near to Plimouth [Plymouth], in Massachusetts, he says, "It is to be observed, 
that the Spring before this Sickness, there was a numerous company of Flies, which, 
were like for bigness unto Wasps or Bumble-Bees, they came out of little holes in the 
ground, and did eat up the green things, and made such a constant yelling noise as 
made all the woods ring of them, and ready to deaf the hearers; they were not any 
of them heard or seen by the English in the Country before this time: But the Indians 
told them that sickness would follow, and so it did, very hot in the months of June, 
July and A ugust of that Summer," viz. 1633. He says, "Toward Winter the sick- 
ness ceased;" and that it was "a kinde of a pestilent Feaver." — New England's 
Memoriall, <fcc, pp. 90 and 91. 
The fact noted that the native Indians associated the recurrences of 
this insect with pestilential diseases is interesting, as showing that the 
Cicada had probably long been under observation by them and had 
exerted a vivid influence on their imaginations. 
One of the earliest references on this continent to the periodical 
Cicada is recorded in Stead man's Library of American Literature, vol- 
ume 1, pages 462-463. It is from the writings of an individual signing 
himself "T. M.," supposed to have been Thomas Matthews, son of 
Samuel Matthews, governor of Virginia. It was written in 1705, and 
refers to three prodigies which are said to have appeared in that coun- 
try about the year 1(175, l and which, from the attending disasters, were 
looked upon as ominous, presages. One of these was the appearance 
of a large comet; another, the flight of enormous flocks of pigeons; 
and the last, relating evidently to the periodical Cicada, as follows: 
"The third strange appearance was swarms of flies about an inch long 
and big as the tip of a man's little finger, rising out of spigot holes in 
the earth, which eat the new-sprouted leaves from the tops of the trees 
without other harm, and in a month left us." 2 
The next reference to this insect is in a memorandum, dated 1715, 
1 There is no recorded brood which could have appeared in 1675, and the year 
meant is probably either 1673 or 1676, both of which were cicada years. 
2 See Webster, Insect Life, Vol. II, p. 161. 
