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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com
It Makes No Never Mind by James Nalley
I
n the book titled, “The Poem and the Insect” by David Spooner, he refers to poet Thomas Gray’s evocation of a summer night and how he “weaves the insect into the art of being”: Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. Such lines evoke the true essence of the first month of summer. However, in Maine, this month is also dominated by June bugs, which, according to Vincent Dethier in “Yankee Magazine,” are “boisterous, rowdy blunderers that bang on the screens, thump at the doors, and whirl around porch lights as though intoxicated by the import of their message.” June bugs are red-brown beetles with shiny wing covers that appear in the northern hemisphere in general, and Maine in particular. A June bug begins as an egg in the soil that was placed by its mother before her death. For three years, the small grub feeds on roots and
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lives in total darkness until it emerges as an adult beetle. However, since each female buries between 50 and 200 pearl-sized eggs, the sheer number of grubs can destroy entire crops and kill lawns by severing the grass from its roots. Moreover, after the grubs have labored for three years, they emerge and make the most out of life over a single summer. According to Dethier, “In human terms, it is as though a person spent a childhood of 68 years in order to enjoy as an adult a mere two summers.” Although adult June bugs are generally harmless, they are attracted to light, which can make the time on one’s porch/patio an unpleasant experience. There are many instances in which a person is relaxing outside and is “dive-bombed” in the head by one of these flying nuisances. For those who want to take a more active approach to stopping them, the online magazine “The Spruce” suggests “applying an insecticide that contains carbaryl or trichlorfon in September, since the grubs are still close enough to the soil surface to be susceptible. This also makes it easier to wipe them all out.” For those who are more passive, by mid-summer, female June
bugs burrow into the ground and lay their eggs before they die. During this period, there is a considerable drop in the number of June bugs. Also keep in mind that frogs, birds, and snakes love to feast on them. As for their erratic behaviors, CBC Radio-Canada stated that “June bugs have just weeks to reproduce. Then they die. You’d be frantic too.” Well, on this note, let me close with the following: A sad, depressed man was sitting at a bar, contemplating the end of his life, and staring at a small, uneaten sandwich. Then, a trouble-making truck driver walks in, stands next to the man, and eats his entire sandwich. After the sad man begins to cry, the truck driver says, “Oh, I was just joking man! I’ll buy you another sandwich.” The sad man wipes his tears and says, “This is the worst day of my life. First, I was late to work and I got fired. Second, my car was stolen. Third, my wife left me. Fourth, I spent $10,000 on two African leaf beetles, which exude a poison that causes death by paralysis within two minutes. The confused truck driver asks, “Um, I don’t get it… What’s wrong with the last one?” The sad man replies, “Well, the two beetles were in that sandwich!”
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