Charles Marlatt had my kind of interior design sense.

This 20th-century American entomologist had the wooden bannisters in his Washington, D.C. home carved with cicadas. This insect-inspired décor should not be a surprise to anyone that knew of his passion and work with cicadas. Marlatt is credited with the study and naming of this insect’s brood classes.

The Marlatt Mansion has addition significance. After it left the hands of the family, the property was owned by the USSR, at one time housed the KGB, and served as the temporary residence of Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. The red brick building is now the Institute of World Politics.

But what of those bug-inspired banisters? One can only wonder if they remain or, like the insects they portray, gone underground.

Cicadas are in the news, as it is a big year for a special group of the periodic variety. Periodic cicadas emerge episodically — with two classes (17- and 13-year broods) that have their own schedules of appearance. Annual cicadas are another type, which do not come out occasionally en mass, but rather appear every year.

This is the year for Brood XIV, known as Magicicada septendecim, which will emerge in Massachusetts. Their arrival is imminent, and watchers are already seeing these cicadas’ entrance holes and nymphs resting within them. Brood XIV is expected on the Cape, with abundance anticipated in Eastern Massachusetts, having been reported previously in Barnstable, Bourne, Falmouth, Mashpee and Sandwich.

So close, yet so far away from the Vineyard. And since these cicadas are only known to fly up to a half a mile, there isn’t much chance of them getting over the multiple miles of ocean between us and the Cape. This is sad news for folks like me who want to experience the ear-splitting, mind-boggling, mass emergence of these curious crawlers. This brood is the second largest in terms of numbers of the periodic cicadas that may be observed, and seeing up to one million cicadas per acre is a possibility.

The large and loud insects are expected to emerge at the end of May or beginning of June, whenever the soil temperature at depths of seven to eight inches reaches 64-degrees Fahrenheit. 

The news is mixed for Massachusetts cicada-watcher. Bad news for the insect-phobic or those worried about their trees — since these cicadas can damage vulnerable host trees which include their favorite, oak, but also maple, black locust, apple, ash, birch, hickory, dogwood and hawthorn. Good news for those who want to avoid the cacophony and masses of cicadas is that the Island doesn’t seem to be in this broods’ historic range. 

Frightening or fascinating: to each her own.

While members of Brood XIV are out, they will be metamorphosing, mating, singing, laying eggs, feeding birds and other wildlife, and dying within a month after they see the light of day. Their offspring laid on those tasty trees will eat, fall to the ground and burrow into the earth for their 17-year slumber.

Perhaps a pilgrimage to the Cape is in order to experience the magic of Magicicada, for this brood won’t return until 2042, when toddlers of today will have already graduated high school. Call it a cicada safari or a cicada-cation for those that want to be serenaded by a cicada symphony and swarmed by millions of thumb-sized creatures gathering for the time of their life.

Suzan Bellincampi is director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown, and author of Martha’s Vineyard: A Field Guide to Island Nature and The Nature of Martha’s Vineyard.