Post by nomad on Jul 24, 2019 12:29:16 GMT
One of my favourite books that I have read recently is The Fly Trap – 2015
The author is the Swedish entomologist & Dipterist Fredrik Sjöberg. It really is a beautifully written & interesting book. It details Sjöberg's search for hoverflies on a small Swedish island, with a sprinkling of a fascinating biography of his countryman René Malaise who invented the famous insect trap.
A page quoted from the book when Sjöberg is out hunting hoverfly specimens with a net near a busy road “But when the raspberry thickets bloom and the thistles and the spirea, then I have to stand closer to the roads and the questions. You get used to it. But on certain days, when there are a lot of people out and about, I get tired of explaining and start lying instead like a hitchhiker. They almost always lie, at least on the main roads for the simple reason than otherwise they'd get sick of their own history. It can be very taxing to stick to the truth for a whole day, in maybe a dozen different cars, answering the same questions about where you are going and why. That's why hitchhikers live such interesting lives. It's all lies. The same is true of fly-collectors whom people will not leave alone.
' What are you doing '
' Catching Butterflies'
That's the cheapest lie. It almost always works extremely well and does not lead to follow up questions. I believe the butterfly hunter is seen as a somewhat touching figure, delicate and a little pathetic, a person who ought to be left there in the sunshine without further comment. Just a motherly smile and, tops, an encouraging I see. No one needs to ask what a butterfly is, and everyone knows there are grown men who collect them. However, it is not entirely risk free, the butterfly lie. If your luck is bad, the person who disturbs your peace may be one of those increasingly common individuals who believe that all butterflies are protected by law and that consequently the collector is a criminal, possibly a pervert. In that case, the dialogue by the side of the road can be long and tiresome, and in the meantime the flies are flying, and so is the time."
The author is the Swedish entomologist & Dipterist Fredrik Sjöberg. It really is a beautifully written & interesting book. It details Sjöberg's search for hoverflies on a small Swedish island, with a sprinkling of a fascinating biography of his countryman René Malaise who invented the famous insect trap.
A page quoted from the book when Sjöberg is out hunting hoverfly specimens with a net near a busy road “But when the raspberry thickets bloom and the thistles and the spirea, then I have to stand closer to the roads and the questions. You get used to it. But on certain days, when there are a lot of people out and about, I get tired of explaining and start lying instead like a hitchhiker. They almost always lie, at least on the main roads for the simple reason than otherwise they'd get sick of their own history. It can be very taxing to stick to the truth for a whole day, in maybe a dozen different cars, answering the same questions about where you are going and why. That's why hitchhikers live such interesting lives. It's all lies. The same is true of fly-collectors whom people will not leave alone.
' What are you doing '
' Catching Butterflies'
That's the cheapest lie. It almost always works extremely well and does not lead to follow up questions. I believe the butterfly hunter is seen as a somewhat touching figure, delicate and a little pathetic, a person who ought to be left there in the sunshine without further comment. Just a motherly smile and, tops, an encouraging I see. No one needs to ask what a butterfly is, and everyone knows there are grown men who collect them. However, it is not entirely risk free, the butterfly lie. If your luck is bad, the person who disturbs your peace may be one of those increasingly common individuals who believe that all butterflies are protected by law and that consequently the collector is a criminal, possibly a pervert. In that case, the dialogue by the side of the road can be long and tiresome, and in the meantime the flies are flying, and so is the time."
