(b) Write a narrative essay on the most beautiful walk through the woods you took on a cold
winter evening.
Answers
Explanation:
One hard swing of the axe split the log with a satisfying thunk. Loose bark fell from each half, exposing a spidery network of beetle tunnels etched into the sapwood. It’s a familiar sight to anyone whose winter warmth depends on firewood, particularly if they’ve run short before spring and had to scrounge half-rotten dregs from a slash pile. Dead or dying timber attracts dozens of beetle species that lay their eggs in the protected and nutritious layer between bark and wood.
Previous experience told me this was the work of the Douglas fir engraver, a tiny beetle whose tracks radiate outward from a long, central chamber. Look closely and each winding trail widens as it spreads, enlarged by the growth of the constantly chewing larva inside.
I reached down to position another chunk of wood, and there lay one of the grubs, rudely knocked loose by my axe work. It twitched helplessly on the cold chopping block, a pale, maggoty thing that any non-entomologist would likely brush aside with a shudder. But I knew it held an important lesson in winter survival, and a single thought ran through my mind: Now’s my chance.
It was a moment I’d been putting off for 15 years, ever since taking a graduate course from famed University of Vermont biologist Bernd Heinrich. With books like Ravens in Winter and Winter World to his credit, the unassuming, German-born Heinrich stands in the vanguard of scientists fascinated by cold. His winter ecology class explored the myriad ways animals survive frigid temperatures, from the true hibernation of black bears and painted turtles, to the controlled shivering of songbirds, to the way a wood frog simply freezes solid and waits for the weather to warm. Beetle larvae, he told us, make their own antifreeze. Lots of insects do. As temperatures drop, they produce quantities of glycerol and sugars that effectively lower the freezing point of their body fluid. “You don’t believe me?” he’d asked the class. “Taste one. They’re sweet!”