Chapter+12+Pg+209-224

Summary
The chapter starts with Dillard standing in the Lucas meadow surrounded by thousands of grasshoppers, creating a disturbing amount of noise to the point that she can only concentrate on them and nothing else. As she listens to the grasshoppers, she begins to think about locust, and how they are the exact same thing as grasshoppers, and yet they are completely different. Locust are indeed grasshoppers, but they morph from one to the other by being crowded in a particular place with their own species. Dillard reflects on this matter, as to how just one element can change something, "from Jekyll to Hyde before your eyes." (210) Getting past this, she begins a journey to Lucas cottage near //Tinker Creek//. Once arriving she takes in the whole cottage, as she seems to do every time she visits this place. The smashed windows, the two by fours warped from age, the sound of the animals interactions outside, and so on. As she does this for a while she remembers a strange occurrence of the night, one that she once read of. When eels reach full maturity during the summer, they turn silver and begin to travel downstream toward the sea. During this quest they may even sometimes travel across land. She begins to imagine what would happen if this situation occurred right in front of her, would she try to escape and never return to that spot, or would she join them on the quest. This chapter seems to have a lot of focus on the fact that everything seems to have two sides. How everything seems to have a black and a white attitude and in some cases it is only under extreme conditions that we see one or the other.


 * Vocabulary**


 * Kudzu** - 20 species of Pueraria, a plant native to Eastern Asia.
 * Oxbow** - "U" shaped metal frame that is placed around an ox's neck in order for it to be chained to a particular load.
 * Martyrdom** - The death of a martyr.
 * Fretwork** - Decorative design that is generally geometric and cut with a fret saw.
 * Cicadas** - Insect that generally live in temprate climates and widely recognized for their large body and acoustic talents.
 * Stridulations** - Poducing sound by rubbing to body parts together.
 * Bobwhite** - Type of quail that has 4 distinct species all of which live in North and South America.
 * Pawpaw** - Small tree with big leaves found in Eastern North America.
 * Goldfinch** - Small bird weighing 11 to 20 grams with a small pointed beak that aids in the retrieval of seeds.
 * Furling** - To manipulate an airflow.
 * Errant** - Wondering or roving.
 * Honeysuckle** - Schrub/vine that grows only in the Northern Hemisphere.
 * Fixity** - The quality of being fixed or unchanged.
 * Swathed** - To wrap some one or something completely.
 * Lorn** - Forsaken.
 * Mud Dauber** - Wasp that makes nest by molding mud using their mandible.


 * People**

__Edwin Way Teale__ - (1899-1980) American Naturalist, photographer, and Pulitzer prize winner, best known for his series //The American Seasons//.

__Horace Kephart__ - (1862-1931) American travel writer and librarian, best known for writing //Our Southern Highlanders//.

__Pliny__ - (23-79) Ancient Roman nobleman, scientist, historian and author of //Naturalis Historia//.

__Giovanna Battista Tiepolo__ - (1696-1770) Venetian painter and printmaker, worked in Veneto, Germany, and Spain and is considered one of the last "Grand Manner" fresco painters.

__Uvarov__ - Russian naturalist.

__Adam__ - Biblical character, original man from the Garden of Eden.


 * Allusions**

"The world has locust, and the world has grasshoppers. I was knees deep in the world." (211) "You come for the assault, you come for the flight- but really you know you come for the laugh." (213) "Creation itself was the fall, a burst into the thorny beauty of the real." (218-219) "Night risings and fallings filled my mind, free excursions carried out invisibly while the air swung up and back and the starlight rained." (221)


 * Sources**

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