Dac Crossley's Western Blog

Centipedes, Too!

In a comment, Mac C. spurred my memory about centipedes in the house. Yes, there are some.

 Centipedes are elongate, segmented creatures with little legs. They have one pair of legs per segment; the similar millipedes have two pair per segment. (Centipede = hundred legs; millipede = thousand legs. They don't have than many). Both kinds of animals are soil arthropods (arthropod = jointed leg), found in forest to desert soils and temperate to tropical places. Turn over a rock or two, or a spadefull of garden soil, and you're likely to unearth a centipede.

House centipedes are immigrants from Mexico, perhaps two inches in length. They scamper along on long, stilted legs, unlike those of its soil-living cousins. House centipedes were abundant in my ground-floor, humid apartment in Lawrence, Kansas, years ago. They are reputed to eat cockroach eggs. I welcomed them, and was never bitten. Maybe they couldn’t get hold of my skin? 

Once, in a roadside park near the Devil’s River in Texas, I turned over a rock and exposed the big, red-headed desert centipede, about six inches long as I recall.

My father said, “Sonny, leave it alone. It can sting you with each of those legs!”

 “No, Dad,” said I, wiser with my entomological training, “They can only bite you with their mouthparts – those jaws. See?” 

Turns out, Dad was right. That big centipede is strong enough to puncture your skin with those sharp claws on each leg. And there is a poison gland located in the base of the leg. It’s never happened to me. I don’t intend to experiment with a big centipede.

And here's a strange one. A former student phoned me to ask if centipedes had hallucinogenic properties. She was volunteering in a half-way house, and found that the recovering addicts were eating centipedes.

That's one I never pursued. 

Dac Crossley

1/24/2010

 “There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.” – Writer Mary Wilson Little. 

Scorpions in the House!

And you thought it was just in Texas! Here in Georgia we get a cute little scorpion invading our homes, especially in the summertime when it’s dry outside.

Yesterday in the Georgia Museum of Natural History I located a specimen of a micro whip scorpion and will mail it to a specialist in Austin. This creature is tiny, really microscopic, colorless and poorly known, one of those enigmas of the arachnological world. It got me to thinking about scorpions.

I was introduced to scorpions at an early age. When I was a child in Kingsville, Texas, out at the end of West Kennedy Street, I slept on a screened porch. More than once a scorpion found me in bed. I yelled and cried, it hurt, but a little piece of ice soon eased the pain.

Scorpions carry a stinger at the end of a long, flexible tail. They grasp prey (other small critters) with their lobster-like pinchers. The tail arches over the back and delivers venom to their prey. It’s also a defensive mechanism, as I discovered when a child.

Most likely, that Kingsville stinger was the Striped Bark Scorpion, which is the only widely distributed species in Texas. There are about 20 known species of scorpions in Texas. The number increases as you go west. In the Big Bend fourteen species have been recorded.

None of the Texas scorpions is thought to be deadly, although reaction to the sting depends upon the individual. And there’s always the risk of bacterial infection when an arachnid latches onto you.

Georgia has two species of scorpions, popularly called the Bark Scorpion and the Red Devil. The Bark Scorpion is easy to find, hiding under bark on a pine tree stump. A quirk of field biology – scorpions will fluoresce under black light.

Scorpion control? I’ve never been stung by a Georgia scorpion. Bill Zak (Texas Critters) says bash ‘em with a rock. I’m more considerate; when I find one it’s tweezers and toss it outdoors. A better source of information about Texas scorpions is A Field Guide to Spiders & Scorpions of Texas, by John A. Jackman.

   One guy reports that his wife tries to kill scorpions by screaming so loud it’ll bust their little eardrums…

Dac Crossley

1/17/2010

 “Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.” – Writer Minna Antrim.

Three Confederate Officers?

The Three Confederates I mentioned are those portrayed as equestrians in the bas relief sculpture on Stone Mountain in Atlanta, Georgia: Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. Most of you who contacted me agreed with my choices, but a few would substitute Joe Johnson or Joe Hooker. 

All three of the Confederates were graduates of West Point. Jefferson Davis thought that succession from the Union was legal but unwise. Robert E. Lee would have agreed with him. Jackson didn’t express an opinion on succession. Two of the Confederates had Texas connections. 

As noted previously, Jefferson Davis dispatched the Second Cavalry to Texas. As a young man, Jefferson Davis fell in love with Zachary Taylor’s daughter. Taylor strongly disapproved, so Davis resigned his army commission when he married the girl. Back in the army, Davis fought bravely in the Mexican War. Zachary Taylor is reputed to have said, “My daughter, sir, was a better judge of men than I was.”

 Lieutenant-Colonel Robert E. Lee served in Texas, crossing the Red River with the Second Cavalry in 1855, where he led patrols against the Comanches. His diary has an entry about the beautiful white wild mustang he saw in the Wild Horse Desert.

 As far as I know, Stonewall Jackson never came to Texas. He is thought to be the best of the Confederate Generals. My grandfather, Walter Lee Baird, a Civil War Historian, once told me that Stonewall Jackson had to die. Had he lived, the Confederate armies could not have been defeated. But the South was destined to lose the war, said my grandfather, because “slavery was wrong.” Jackson was shot by mistake, by a nervous sentry. He lived for a week, but was also suffering from pneumonia and soon perished. 

I think that the best Civil War novel is A Distant Flame, by Philip Lee Williams. 

Gone with the Wind doesn’t qualify. It’s just a love story. 

Dac

1/10/2010 

“Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.” -- Stonewall Jackson’s dying words.

 

Jefferson Davis versus the Texas Indians

Jefferson Davis, one of the trio of outstanding Confederate Officers, once launched a war on the Indians of Texas.

Davis is perhaps best remembered today for his traveling Presidency, and in Georgia for fleeing from federal officers across the State (and hiding Confederate gold someplace in Wilkes County). History treats him as an ineffective leader.

But Davis, a graduate of West Point and a hero of the Mexican War of 1846-1846, also launched an effective military campaign against the Texas Indians. Davis was Secretary of War in the Pierce Administration (1853-1857). An imperialist, he believed in American expansion and the reservation system for Indians. He studied the tactics of the British in India and the French in Africa (he imported camels, an unsuccessful venture). And he admired the tactics of the Texas Rangers.

Cavalry, not infantry, was the weapon he envisioned. He created the Second Calvary in Kentucky, equipped them with fine horses and modern weapons such as Navy Colts and breech-loading carbines. They crossed the Red River into Texas. And began pursuing Indians. 

Any Indians between the Balcones line and the Llano Estacado were fair game, they should be on reservations. Soon the cavalry succeeded in clearing the area. Now came the battles with Comanches. Most were small encounters but they were effective. The Second Cavalry was dogged in its pursuit of hostiles. The Comanches retreated west and south.

But the Civil War interrupted their efforts. It would be twenty years before U.S. cavalry troops resumed their battle with the Comanche Indians of Texas.

Now – Jefferson Davis was one of a trio. Who were the other two outstanding Confederate Officers?

 Dac

 1/7/2010

 “Old age is like climbing a mountain. The higher you get, the more tired and breathless you become, but your view becomes much more extensive.” – Ingmar Bergman