On Six Legs by Tom Turpin 

 

A number of years ago a boyhood friend sent me a book. He liked the book and thought I would enjoy it as well. The book reminded him of the carefree, bygone times of our youth. Days when two young farm boys traipsed through meadows, roadsides and streams, wallowing in everything that nature had to offer. He also said that the book had a lot of insect stuff in it – so it was right down my alley.

The book was Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. It wasn’t just another nature book but the 1975 Pulitzer Prize-winner for General Non-Fiction. It is a book about nature, spirituality and religion. Many people have compared the book to the work of Henry David Thoreau. That is an apt comparison. Dillard actually did her college senior thesis on Thoreau’s work. Furthermore, she lived for a year at Tinker Creek in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and kept a journal of her thoughts and observations that became the basis for the book.

I found the book fascinating for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the abundance of insect examples and analogies. The first insects mentioned were water striders that “patrol the surface film” of Tinker Creek. The next insect to grace the pages of the book was a giant water bug. According to Dillard, this insect is “an enormous, heavy-bodied brown beetle.” The behavior of the insect was perfectly described. While the common name – giant water bug – is correct, the insect is not a beetle.

Dillard made a common entomological error; she placed an insect in an incorrect order. The giant water bug is a true bug, classified in the order Hemiptera. Beetles are classified as Coleoptera. Dillard talks about how the giant water bug sucked the juices out of its prey. Structural characteristics of true bugs’ piercing mouthparts allow them to do just that. Beetles, on the other hand, have chewing mouthparts.

In chapter 3, titled Winter, Dillard writes about how insects survive the cold temperatures of that season. Water striders and mourning cloak butterflies hibernate as adults. Aphids spend the winter as eggs, bumble bees and paper wasps as queens, and wooly bear caterpillars as a “bristling ball.”

Praying mantids survive the winter as a group of eggs in a papier-mache-like case, called an ootheca. Dillard begins chapter 4 with the lines: “I have just learned to see praying mantis egg cases. Suddenly I see them everywhere; a tan oval of light catches my eye, or I notice a blob of thickness in a patch of slender weeds.” I use this quote often as a commentary on how learning and teaching broaden a person’s perspective.

Another quote that I particularly like from the book focuses on the sheer number of insects. “Theirs is the biggest wedge of the pie: Why?” This comment alludes to the frequent method of depicting the number of species or mass of living organisms on earth in a pie chart. Insects always occupy the largest area of the chart.

Dillard shares her negativity, and that of many other people, toward the insect world with the words: “I never ask why of a vulture or a shark, but I ask why of almost every insect I see.” It’s a common human attitude; only 5 percent of us have a positive view of insects.

After reading the book I was impressed with the number of insect references that were included. As a teacher of entomology I couldn’t help but be curious about how Dillard had learned her entomology. She obviously is a great observer of nature, but much of the insect material she included in the book could not, in my opinion, have been learned through observation alone.

In the summer of 1991 I had the opportunity to have a telephone conversation with Dillard. I asked how she had acquired her entomological knowledge. The answer was by reading books. One book that she specifically mentioned was Life on a Little-Known Planet by Howard Ensign Evans. Evans was an entomologist and professor at Harvard. His 1968 book is one of the most popular books written specifically to educate a general audience about the world of insects.

Reading a book about insects supported Dillard’s pilgrimage at Tinker Creek. And now she sees praying mantid egg masses everywhere. Isn’t learning about insects a wonderful thing?

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Tom Turpin may write to him in care of this publication.