These are Brood XIX of the 13-year periodical cicada. Entomologists have been watching it since the brood was numbered in a national survey begun in 1893, but the earliest informal record of it dates all the way back to 1686. Gardeners at Cheekwood have taken to wearing earplugs to avoid being deafened by the cicada chorus. Many die before they have a chance to reproduce. Napoleon said he had such a huge army he could afford to lose 30,000 men each day.
Nature has even more cicadas to spare.
No matter how many are dying out there, their brethren fill the trees and the air. Every few years, cicada experts emerge from their subterranean obscurity and bask in the limelight for a few weeks. Then, presumably, they become dormant until we need them again. For some time now, one of the region's busiest entomologists has been Steven Murphree, associate professor of biology at Belmont University. There are three species in this brood, all members of the genus Magicicada, so named because of their magically synchronized emergence.