THE CTCADA TX T.I IKKAirKK. 147 
Prior to ihv discovory of \\\o nboxc record tli(> cnrlicst piihlislicd 
account known was tliat rcfc'ri-cd to in Hnllclin 11 (new .scries) of 
tho Division of lMiloinoloi2:y. |)ai;-e I I'J, ^ixcn in a work (Mililled 
"New Knij^land's M(MnorialL" ky Nathaniel Moreton, printed at 
Cand)i*idii:(\ Mass.. in I (id!). 1 was nnal)k' to irel tlic work cited, 
but an account se(Mi ky nie was a (|notation from it i)td)li>lied in an 
(Mlitorial not(^ to an artick' on tke "I^ocust of Noi'tk Aineiica, " in 
Bart*)n's M(Mlical and Physical dournal of kSOl. The kiood referred 
to ky Moreton is undonktedly tlic sanu* one refeii-(>(l to akoxc, kut 
the occurrence of seventeen years previous, floret on, puklishiiiLC of 
an ev(Mit liappenint^: thirty-six years after it occurred, evident 1\ 
made a mistake of one year, the occui"renc(* not keinij: H)3o, as stated 
])y him. ])ut l()o4. "We have records of this krood in New Enjj;land 
from 17S7 to 19()(). The records, if any were made of it after 1G51 
and ])rior to 1787, have not been discovered." 
The quotation from Moreton referred to follows: 
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 Flics, 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 th(^m that sickness would follow, and so it did, very hot in the months of June, 
July and August of that Summer," viz. 1633. He says, "Toward Winter the sick- 
ness ceaj^ed;" and that it was "a kinde of a pestilent Feaver." — New England's 
Memoriall, &c., p}). 90 and 91. 
The fact noted, namely, that the native Indians associated the recur- 
rences of this insect with pestilential diseases, is interesting, as showing 
tliat llie Cicada had probably long keen under observation by them 
and had exerted a vivid influence on their imaginations. 
One of the earliest references on this continent to the ])eriodical 
Cicada is recorded in Steadman's Library of American Literatin-(% 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 
Sannnd Mattkews, governor of Virginia. It was written in 170"), and 
refers to tkree prodigies which are said to have a})])(nir(Ml in that coun- 
try akout tk(^ year 1675,^ and which, from the attend uig disastcM's, 
w(>re looked upon as ominous presages. One of these was the app(>ai-- 
ance of a large comet ; another, the flight of enormous fl(;cks 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 as big as 
the tip of a man's little fmger, rising out of spigot holes in the earth, which eat the 
oSee Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash., v, pp. 126-127, February, 1903. 
ft 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. 
