Murphy on 17-Year Locusts, May 1957

Excerpt from Robert Cushman Murphy's Journal, May 1957, 

on Return of the Seventeen Year Locusts

'Brood 14' of the seventeen-year locust is here again.  In

Belle Terre the insects were first seen emerging from the ground on or

about May 23. I last saw them in the same area between June 9 and July

4, 1940.

Before that I saw them in the same approximate season of 1923,

when I could hear the yelling chorus in Belle Terre from our Crystal

Brook house. Unfortunately, I made no notes, but I still have three

specimens from that emergence. The one before that was in 1906, just

at the time I graduated from the Port Jefferson High School, and I well

recall seeing and hearing them on my frequent walks between Mt. Sinai

and 'Port.' (We rarely use the 'Jefferson.' It always pleased an

old salt like Clifford Ashley to hear us natives speak of 'going to Port.')

The next earliest appearance of the cicada Brood 14 would have been

in 1881, when I was two years old. We were probably on Long

Island, at Good Ground (now Hampton Bays), but I can't very well

swear that I noted the insects then! Nevertheless 1906, 1923, l940, 1957-

that makes four personal observations. Next time will be in L974, when,

as, and if I am 84 years old. Here's hoping!

I don't know which brood of the cicadas the Pilgrims at Plymouth,

Massachusetts, first encountered in 1633...[more historical reflections 

as well as article clippings follow]

[Continued in downloadable document below...]