Sparkling Summer Nights

The firefly, also known as the lightning bug, is actually neither a fly nor a bug, but a beetle, say Purdue entomologists. This particular firefly is called Say's firefly (Pyractomena angulata), one of about 175 species of fireflies in the United States. (Scientific illustration by Arwin Provonsha, Purdue Department of Entomology.)

I was thinking about fireflies for a while now. They are not out here in Montana and I think of them every summer.

Read this paragraph of an old paper of mine and you will understand a little about why I am so fond of these tiny glowing wonders:

I have many fond memories of St. Clair (Pennsylvania), but the best thing I remember is catching the lightning bugs in those humid summer evenings. Most of the townsfolk would go out to sit on their porches to cool off because there is no air conditioning, even to this day. My grandparents used to sit on their swing and my brothers and I would play on the front porch and wait for the lightning bugs to come out. Sometimes we could catch them on the street, but it was far more entertaining to lie on the grass at the church and wait. We would track them through the grass and air by the yellow glow of their tails. If we caught any lightning bugs, we would only keep them over night before releasing them. I am a lot older now, but I still catch lightning bugs when I go back to St. Clair. There is nothing better.

I tried to put the whole paper on so the full sense comes through but I can't add a document anywhere I guess without copying several pages of text right into a post.

Now I'm off on an overnight camping trip into prime wolf and grizzly habitat-Slough Creek in Yellowstone! Lucky for me, the kid has now decided not to fish down there. I know she will probably change her mind again so I have the gear packed anyway.