The Flight of the Iguana

The Flight of the Iguana Read Free Page A

Book: The Flight of the Iguana Read Free
Author: David Quammen
Ads: Link
Fossey. Most of the attention of each of these thinkers, though, has been devoted to what is popularly (but not necessarily by the thinkers themselves) considered the “upper” end of the “ladder” of life. To my mind, the question of appropriate relations is more tricky and intriguing—also more crucial in the long run, since this group accounts for most of the planet’s species—as applied to the “lower” end, down there among the mosquitoes and worms and black widow spiders.
    These are the extreme test cases. These are the alien species who experience human malice, or indifference, or tolerance, at its most automatic and elemental. To squash or not to squash? Mohandas Gandhi, whose own ethic of nonviolence owed much to ahimsa, was once asked about the propriety of an antimalaria campaign that involved killing mosquitoes with DDT, and he was careful to give no simple, presumptuous answer. These are the creatures whose treatment, by each of us, illuminates not just the strength of emotional affinity but the strength, if any, of principle.
    But what is the principle? Pure ahimsa, as even Gandhi admitted, is unworkable. Vegetarianism is invidious. Anthropocentrism, conscious or otherwise, is smug and ruinously myopic. What else? Well, I have my own little notion of one measure that might usefully be applied in our relations with other species, and I offer it here seriously despite the fact that it will probably sound godawful stupid.
    Eye contact.
    Make eye contact with the beast, the Other, before you decide upon action. No kidding, now, I mean get down on your hands and knees right there in the vegetable garden, and look that snail in the face. Lock eyes with that bull snake. Trade stares with the carp. Gaze for a moment into the many-faceted eyes—the windows to its soul—of the house fly, as it licks its way innocently across your kitchen counter. Look for signs of embarrassment or rancor or guilt. Repeat the following formula silently, like a mantra: “This is some mother’s darling, this is some mother’s child.” Then kill if you will, or if it seems you must.
    I’ve been experimenting with the eye-contact approach for some time myself. I don’t claim that it has made me gentle or holy or put me in tune with the cosmic hum, but definitely it has been interesting. The hardest cases—and therefore I think the most telling—are the spiders.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    The face of a spider is unlike anything else a human will ever see. The word “ugly” doesn’t even begin to serve. “Grotesque” and “menacing” are too mild. The only adequate way of communicating the effect of a spiderly countenance is to warn that it is “very different,” and then offer a photograph. This trick should not be pulled on loved ones just before bedtime or when trying to persuade them to accompany you to the Amazon.
    The special repugnant power of the spider physiognomy derives, I think, from fangs and eyes. The former are too big and the latter are too many. But the fangs (actually the fangs are onlyterminal barbs on the chelicerae, as the real jaw limbs are called) need to be large, because all spiders are predators yet they have no pincers like a lobster or a scorpion, no talons like an eagle, no social behavior like a pack of wolves. Large clasping fangs armed with poison glands are just their required equipment for earning a living. And what about those eight eyes—big ones and little ones, arranged in two rows, all bugged-out and pointing every-whichway? (My wife the biologist offers a theory here: “They have an eye for each leg, like us—so they don’t step in anything.”) Well, a predator does need good eyesight, binocular focus, peripheral vision. Sensory perception is crucial to any animal that lives by the hunt and, unlike insects, arachnids possess no antennae. Beyond that, I

Similar Books

The Dream

Harry Bernstein

new poems

Tadeusz Rozewicz

Guardian Hound

Leah Cutter

Forever His

Shelly Thacker

Scarred

Amber Lynn Natusch

A Turn in the South

V.S. Naipaul

Burn Like Fire

Jody Morse, Jayme Morse