THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 5, 1995 TAG: 9505050561
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
A friend, Alan Flanders, called to alert us to an invasion in Newport News of inchworms such as plagued Norfolk in 1982.
But don't worry, the influx is occurring so early in the season that in four to six weeks the denuded trees will put out new leaves. No sign will be left of inchworm ravages.
That reassurance comes from Dr. Peter Schultz of the Virginia Hampton Roads Agriculture Experimental Station on Diamond Springs Road.
An inchworm would take an eon to trace its way across that name.
A droll creature, about an inch long full grown, it stretches out its front end as far as it can and then pulls up the back end, forming a little loop in the air.
Thus it goes looping along slowly about its business. No one has ever seen an inchworm in a hurry.
Also called a measuring worm, it progresses as a tape measure in the hands of a meticulous tailor.
In boyhood, the myth was that if an inchworm appeared on your person it was measuring you for a shroud. For a girl, it was drawing up a bridal veil. (Folks, I've got to confess; I just made that up that bit about the veil. Let it work its way now on its own into folklore.)
The critter begins defoliating the crowns of trees and, to reach the ground, drops down on a tiny threadlike filament like a monster in a science fiction saga.
When Flanders walked in the evening with Charles the dog, it was as though they were brushing their way through veils.
When he swept heaps of inchworms off the front porch, he left the broom propped outside and, next morning, found them coating the handle as a place to rest.
As inchworms by the thousands munched leaves, the sound of tiny droppings, smaller than black pepper, was that of a faint, whispering rain.
NASA scientists populating the neighborhood turned to pesticide sprays and to swabbing a circle of pasty goo around the bottom of tree trunks, which seemed a mite unscientific inasmuch as the inchworms were working their way down instead of up the trees.
Flanders considered taking a drastic offensive against the foes, but his daughter, Shannon, age 10, stayed his hand.
He has taught her to respect nature's balancing ways, and she observed that the fledgling wrens nesting about the house and a dozen other kinds of birds would feast on the inchworms.
Spreading pesticides, she said, would kill and poison what otherwise would have nurtured the birds.
Further, she said, the pesticide residues would drain into the huge wooded ravine to the rear of several homes, making their way to the James River and thence to pollute the ocean.
The tiny inchworm would have swelled to a global problem.
``Daddy, some jobs are best left to the birds,'' she said.
Which is just what he did. by CNB