By Barbara Morris
Early one recent hot morning, as I opened our side door, I noticed a dragonfly on the path.
It was very still. Its life-span had come to an end, apparently peaceably, since it seemed totally intact. Since I have some young neighbor friends interested in such things, I went back into the house to find a suitable container. Luckily, we had finished some fresh blueberries the night before and I was able to recover the clear plastic container easily. The dragonfly fit into it perfectly.
Thinking back to school days, I remembered that our first composition topic after returning from vacation was always the same — “What I Did Over Summer Vacation.” I wondered if any young students ever wrote, “I didn’t see any dragons walking around, but I did see a dragonfly!” I never thought back then about writing such a line, and feel like kicking myself now for not doing so. Imagine how impressed the teacher would have been!
Instead, one summer our mom and dad drove my sister, grandmother and me on a tour of New England’s historic sites. I think we didn’t miss one of them. My composition that year was brief and to the point. “The week before school opened, my mother took me to the dentist and then bought me a chocolate ice cream soda.”
I have always been fascinated by nature though, and this dragonfly, with its perfect, fragile wings, was like finding a very special treasure. I have always felt that dragonflies and butterflies have some very special relationship to the fairies we were told about in our childhood. Sometimes, as the sun comes up and lights the dew drops on the tips of leaves, it makes me think that if I had only arrived in that spot a few minutes earlier, I might have seen some of those little fairies flying around touching flowers with their wands to make the buds open to their full beauty. No, I haven’t ever seen a fairy, but if the weather keeps being hot and I keep working out in the sun, I may yet!
As interested in nature as I have been, I only recently learned some new things about butterflies. Until now, I never knew that butterfly wings were composed of scales that fluff off as they fly. Their eyes are made up of multiple tiny lenses that can see movement better than distance. They have no backbones, but do have an outside skeleton.
They use their antennae to smell, hear, and touch. They have four wings that contain veins filled mostly with air, which makes it easier for them to fly. They sip nectar from flowers through a straw-like tube that rolls up into their mouth when they aren’t eating. They taste what they are eating through special little cells in their feet -— and they don’t even have to put a foot in their mouths!
They are fascinating, magical creatures. Their life starts when a female butterfly finds some plant she thinks will be tasty for hatching butterflies. She lays eggs on that plant and after a time, caterpillars hatch and begin to eat and eat. They keep eating until they can’t fit into their own skin any more. They shed that skin, leaving a larger skin underneath. That process is repeated several times until the caterpillar knows it’s ready to become a butterfly.
Some caterpillars burrow into the ground for this metamorphosis, while others spin their own cocoon attached to a plant. Gradually, colors begin to show through the cocoon, air is pumped into the veins in the wings and soon a beautiful butterfly is standing there for the lucky to see.
Butterflies need the heat of the sun for survival. They love the hot summer. I, for one, love seeing butterflies. I do not always love being in the hot sun. If you are in the hot sun and don’t feel quite right, get out of the heat, seek shade, rest, apply cold compresses, take a cool drink, relax and enjoy the rest of the summer — especially the butterflies and dragonflies.
