Posted Oct 15, 2002

It seems like I've had more than my share of pet insects.

Lightning bugs came first. They were the high point of every summer back in Murray, until we moved here to Carbondale when I was in sixth grade. My neighborhood was full of them. We lived in a part of town that was still a-building, with no trees of any size, but plenty of grass and small shrubs and flowers, but our fireflies were nothing compared to my grandmother's.

When the privet was in bloom, they congregated to the bushes. I'm the only person I know who enjoys the rather musky fragrance of privet, because it recalls those bushes, taller than my head and, looming up darkly in the dusk, lit from within and without with the mysterious, cool glow of fireflies.

I'd go out with Daddy and catch them in my hands, filling up a mayonnaise jar with a dozen or more, dropping in some leaves to feed them. I always had to let them go the next day, but I'd go to sleep that night with the jar on my night table, flashing softly as if it held the key to the wonders of the universe. Thinking back on it, I remember that innocent awe, but now the imprisoned bugs seem more like a troupe of kidnaped fairies semaphoring for succor.

The years change us, don't they?

We also tried to raise some butterflies, but that didn't go as well. I think I asked what a tomato worm turned into, and Daddy said "Let's see!" but I might be making that up. We got a gallon jar from somewhere, and I caught three of the big, fat, black-striped caterpillars just the color of my "spring-green" crayons. I fed them faithfully with leaves, and I loved watching them eat, and let go with their front feet to rear up their heads and look around, and go back to eating. Then one day I noticed white bumps on their backs that grew steadily taller.

"Parasitic wasps," said Daddy. "The young will hatch out and eat the tomato worms."

We let them go. Wasps have to eat, too, after all, but I didn't have to watch it. Carnivorous pet wasps were too much of a stretch for my imagination at the age of ten.

I didn't get to see a chrysalis hatch out until I'd been out on my own for some time. I found one in the leaf-litter at the Garden Center where I worked, a brown whorled thing that recalled a sea shell. We had a stash of aquariums that we used to protect the displays in an annual show we hosted. We took one of the smallest ones, with some sort of cover, half-filled it with humus and buried the chrysalis under leaves in it. We left it in a shaded, cool window and forgot about it, but one day we noticed a bedraggled-looking butterfly with pale wings clinging to the tallest leaf.

We took it outside and took off the lid. I don't remember now what kind of critter it turned out to be, just that it was pale. As I remember it, I got bored pretty soon, so I just came back and checked at intervals. It took a long time for those crumpled wings to spread themselves out, and the butterfly just sat there with its long spindly legs clutching the leaf, slowly waving its antennae and looking like it was going over its "things to do before a trip" list. I was with a customer when it finally flew off, but I got a glimpse of it fluttering casually away.

Another unobtrusive insect pet was a diving beetle. Jim brought it home from one of his rambles. We had some tropical fish at the time, and we kept it in that aquarium. The fish were all too big for it to bother. It was about the size of my thumbnail, drab dark brown and oval, so you sort of had to look for it to notice it, but it dived up and down, up and down, not exactly with grace but with an inspiring impression of purpose to its travels. We fed it shrimp.

The observation hive was not what you'd call unobtrusive. I had made a casual comment that I'd like to keep bees, and Jim got me a hive for my birthday. I was unnerved to be confronted with a box of a few thousand bees cranky from a long journey, and promptly elected him chief beekeeper, claiming the role of beautiful and talented assistant for myself. After he got the hang of caring for them he built us an observation hive and established it in a window of the front room. We were rewarded with a soothing hum and another slightly musty aroma, the smell of curing honey, and we had something more interesting than most of the shows on TV to look at as long as it was warm. We could pick out the queen, and watch her lay eggs, and watch the bees dance. I think Jim even got so he could follow them, but I was a dilettante. Still, it was fun watching the bees return with their pollen sacks full of orange and of yellow pollen, and a treat to get a close look at the young workers with their thoraxes downy with new hair, and sobering to see the older bees with the highest parts of their bodies worn bald. I missed them when he returned the frames to the hive in the winter.

The hornet's nest was even more eye-catching. Alright, like the bees it was more Jim's than mine, but I'm counting it anyway. He'd been asked by a friend to remove a paper wasp nest, and decided to gas the wasps and preserve the nest. When he opened the garbage sack he'd tied around it, he realized that many of the wasps had been stunned, not killed. Another man would have stuck a hose in the bag and drowned them, but not my Jim. He built a wooden frame about 4' x3', and set it on the front porch, next to our front door. He covered its sides with window screen, and attached the limb that held the nest to the cage. We fed them sugar-water and water, and gave them newspaper to build with.

Our visitors didn't appreciate it as much as we did.

I guess Golden Garden Spiders don't really count as pets, but I have fond memories of them too. And yes, they aren't insects, they're arachnids, but what are a few legs among friends?

When I was a little girl Daddy and I would find one late every summer. She'd be sitting on the edge of her web, two splendid inches of black and gold, and Daddy would catch grasshoppers and fling them into her web. Like lightning, she'd descend on the snared tidbit, rolling it around and around as she bundled it up in silk until it hung, helpless, like a cocoon. I've found at least one almost every year of my life. But I'm getting old, and I seldom feed them any more, I just duck my head in salutation and say hello.

By Ruby Jung, even the background. All rights reserved to the story. If you like the background, you're welcome to copy and use it.