Topical Salve

I am torn. “Crane fly” just does not hold the mystique that “mosquito hawk” does. When you associate “crane fly” — or its oft used misnomer “daddy long legs” — with this insect, you think to yourself, “of course. Long legs. I get it,” and you leave it at that.

But when you associate “mosquito hawk” with this insect, you imagine it patrolling the skies, looking down for unsuspecting prey, then swooping down and devouring mosquitos in midair. These insects are helping control the population of pests. They’re helping control the spread malaria and West Nile virus! They’re the unsung heroes of the insect world! There’s mystique! There’s romance!

Then you see one fly.

Then you do your research.

Then you sigh, slump in your chair, and start referring to them, correctly, as crane flies and lament the loss of innocence that allowed you to think of them as mosquito hawks.

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

–William Blake
“The Tiger”