October 25, 1990 - The Light at the End of the PastureI
October 25, 1990 a The Suffolk Times C11
The Light at the End of the Pasture
By Paul Stoutenburah
About a week ago when we still had
that unbelievably warm weather I went
outside at night and walked across the
back pasture where I was amazed to see
glowing spots all along in the damp
grass. It was something like the light of
a firefly but not as bright. As I ap-
proached these interesting glows they
would sort of burn out and, as the say-
ing goes, "I was left in the dark."
I remember once, years ago, when I
broke open a decaying log there was an
inside glow that radiated with a pale=
green light. Looking that up I found it
to be "foxfire," a sort of glowing fun-
gus. Could it be that? No. These looked
like individual lights. It must be some
sort of bug. Oh, now I remembered.
Glowworms, perhaps.
At any rate I'd have to investigate and
so, forgetting what I came out to do, I
headed back to the house for a flash-
light. Armed with this I proceeded to
solve the puzzle. The only trouble was
when I put the flashlight on my glow-
ing spot, the glow would go out or was
absorbed by my much brighter light. In
frustration I finally got down on my
hands and knees and parted the wet grass
where I last saw a glow and there,
crawling to escape, was what I first
thought to be a sow or pill bug. But
no, it was longer than that, more
serrated and had a definite head to it. I'd
collect a few and take them back to the
house to look up. What it finally turned
out to be was the larvae of the familiar
lightning bug.
Why Glow Now?
These larvae and even the eggs at
times carry their parental, pulsing green
light. But why do they glow now in the
late fall? It's thought that the firefly we.
usually see in early summer uses its
familiar light to attract a female but
why now when no such shenanigans are
going on? I found out that the larvae are
quite carnivorous and spend this part of
their life amongst the debris of the
fields seeking out snails and slugs to
feed upon.
Focus on
Nature
The way they feed on snails is most
interesting. The larvae sees the foot of
the snail and injects a fluid into it,
which breaks down the tissue of the
snail body making it readily available
for the larva to feed upon in a soft,
partly digested state.
My larvae specimens glowed in their
container just as fireflies did years ago
when, as a child, I caught them in a jar
and marveled at them. Here I was years
later still marveling but this time at a
different stage of those wonderful fire-
flies.
This luminescence is one of the won-
ders of the living world and only a few
insects have been able to create its fa-
miliar glow. Science has not yet been
able to unravel the mystery of how this
luminescence is produced. It's the per-
fect light — almost 100 percent effi-
cient for it gives off no heat. If some
day man can unravel this mystery and
reproduce such a light we will truly
have a breakthrough in the lighting in-
dustry. Why this would be so world -
shattering is that the glow from a gas
flame, for example, only produces about
three percent visible rays while the rest
goes into heat loss. The light given off
by an electric are is only 10 percent effi-
cient and the sun which we always
think of as perfect is a mere 35 percent
efficient. You can see why if light were
produced like the firefly's glow, we
would truly have a revolution in light-
ing.
Shared Light
Once again I was struck by the won-
der of the world around us and I had to
share it with someone. We're fortunate
in having our children living near so I
called over the fence to the kids and in-
vited the whole family out into the pas-
ture to see our glowworms. Sure
enough, in a short while, a bobbing
flashlight appeared over the fence and
Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh
FIRST FROST —Even though we've been blessed with a balmy fall
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one by one they came single file,
Robby with the light leading the way.
It was a joy to see the excitement of the
young ones as they ran from one spot
to another greeting each glow with a
squeaking, "Here's one!"
The week has passed and that same
dew this early Sunday morning turned
into our first frost. This can be a vari-
able thing for first frosts are never uni-
versal, rather they hit some spots and
miss others. I'm sure the Calverton-
Manorville area had had its frosts weeks
and possibly even a month ago for that
area is noted for its cold spots. We no-
ticed this, not only on Long Island, but
a short time ago we were in the
Catskills to see some of the fall color.
There, some spots had frost damage to
the corn while in others just over the
valley or around the next bend the corn
was still green. Their corn, unlike our
Long Island sweet corn, is cattle corn.
No matter how you look at it, fall
has surely settled in. Leaves are falling,
pumpkins are all along the roadside
stands, crabs and eels are going into the
mud, most birds have migrated and
strings of cormorants are still flying
west. These birds, so familiar sitting on
fish traps and pilings, seem to grow in
number each year. We see them feeding
in our creeks where we never had them
years ago. Does it mean there are more
of them and therefore they are spilling
over into our creeks? Or does it mean
there is less fish out in the seas and
therefore they are coming into our
creeks to find food? Riddles like that
take time to find answers.
The woodstove was cranked up last
night. Before that we had the fireplace
— more for looks than for heating but
now that the cool nights warrant the
steady heat of the stove it will be stan-
dard in our home. To some fall is a
rather sad time of the year for it's a re-
minder of winter ahead but when you
live every day for what it offers, this
fall has been exceptional. No one can
complain about the fall of 1990. Let's
hope the winter will reward us as well.
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