Smooth sumach at Texas house, two days . . . P. Hutchinson says that he can remember when haymakers form Sudbury, thirty or forty years ago, used to come down the river in numbers and unite with concord to clear the weeds out of the river in shallow places and the larger streams emptying in . . .

  Your letter of the 25th, the books, and the Cicada came to hand this evening,—and I am much obliged to you for all of them;—for the books,—because I am very busy with putting the Library in order for examination, & want every book to be in its place; – for the letter, because it gives me interesting facts concerning Cicadas; and for the specimen because it is new to me, as a species or as a variety.

  The Cicada seems to be a female, and of course when living could not make the noise peculiar to the other sex. It differs from my specimens of Cicada septemdecim (& indeed still more from all the other species in my collection). It is not so large as the C.17; it has more orange about its thorax; the wing-veins are not so vividly stained with orange, and the dusky zigzag W on the anterior or upper wings, which is very distinct in the C.17, is hardly visible in this specimen. It has much the same form as the female C.17; but I must see the male in order to determine positively whether it be merely a variety or a different species. I should be very glad to get more specimens and of both sexes. Will you try for them?

  Your much obliged

  Thaddeus William Harris.