Jackie Mullins, aged 9, of Chesapeake Bay Va., for his question:
What is a snake doctor? ‑
A snake doctor is not always a person who goes around curing sick snakes. Snake doctor is a local name for an insect. Some people also call this fellow a snake dragon. Others may call any kind of dragonfly a snake doctor. This is very confusing. It shows why the experts have given a special name to each creature and each plant. And each plant and creature is known by its proper name to experts throughout the world.
Jackie is curious about an insect that hovers around his back porch. He has been told it is a snake doctor. The expert's name for a snake doctor is the hellgammite. And the hellgammite does not usually hang around back porches. He loves the damp reeds and plants of streams He spends his early life as a nymph ‑ a, small copy of his parents. During this stage he stays hidden under damp rocks and stones, usually near the water,
When he reaches his grown‑up stage, he takes to the air on delicately veined gauzy wings. His adult life is spent skimming the water of his favorite stream. This hellgammite has a number of aliases ‑‑ though he is far from being a criminal. He is called the dobson fly and the salmon fly. Certain fish, it seems, enjoy eating him for dinner: Trout and salmon will leap up and grab him as he skims over the water. That is how he was named a salmon fly ‑ he is a salmon food fly.
However, this bug of Jackie's can hover standing still in the air. The snake doctor ‑ salmon fly ‑ dobson fly ‑ hellgammite cannot do this. But a real dragon fly can. So Jackie's interesting insect might be almost any kind of a dragon fly. However, he is not a dragon fly if he stings. Neither a hellgammite nor a dragon fly can really sting. The dragon fly sometimes arches his slender back as though he meant tosting. But he doesn't. For he has no stinger. The hellga.mmite has powerful jaws and might take a nip. But he cannot sting.
Andy asked an insect expert about this interesting bug. The expert said he needed more evidence to be certain of the little fellow’s pet proper name. He doubted very much if it was a real snake doctor, either a hellgammite or dragon fly.
The expert made a guess as to whom the little fellow might be. It just might be, he said., a kind of wasp. Its proper name might be a polistes wasp. This fellow is sometimes called a paper wasp. He builds a nest of chewed‑up wood. And chewed‑up wood is a kind of paper. If Jackie's visitor is a paper wasp, held better watch out. A wasp has a stinger. And if he gets upset, he wont wait a minute to use it.