Insect assignment goes against brother's true nature

I have several bugs chilling in my refrigerator.

Before anyone gets out their moral barometer, these insects are going to be there for a very good and worthy reason.

They're part of my brother Steven's continuing education as an entomology major at Washington State University.

As part of a course this semester, he has to pick up 150 individual insects, each representing a different family, for a collection by the end of April.

It's a bit of an intimidating project. It's not like he can just go and pick up one praying mantis, one bumblebee and then pad his collection with a whole bunch of ants. The requirements for this collection are one from each family, so Steven can only turn in one ant, total, and must find 149 other unique, individual and different insects.

The fact he must perform this task while balancing his schoolwork and social life, without the benefit of a car or the added assistance of class field trips, only adds to the intimidation.

Which, of course, means it's probably going to be big brother (and mom and dad) to the rescue, or at least some very great assistance.

I'm already finding myself scouring fields and empty parking lots for insects, and hoping to pick up my own additions in effort to help out, making note of when and where I found them.

I've got to find my own bug jars, the handy-dandy go-to containers I keep on hand for when I find a spider crawling across my apartment. And I just picked up 20 pill bottles from a local pharmacy because they make good containers.

Spiders, by the by, are arachnids and not insects, so they don't qualify for the 150. Which, knowing our luck, means this will be a spring of spider abundance, with nary an insect in sight.

Last time Steven took this class, I would have killed to find something of importance, a key find, a noteworthy addition. You know, like a praying mantis, a dragonfly or a black widow. (At that time, spiders counted.)

What makes this whole thing seem the most daunting is the fact insect collecting isn't something which comes naturally to Steven. When he first announced his major intentions to the college, his advisors asked if he had any collections.

When he replied he did not, one said there were two types of entomologists in the world — collectors and observers.

Steven is very much an observer, or a catch-and-releaser at the very most.

I can remember us picking up what seems like hundreds of grasshoppers from a little spot down the street in our Spokane neighborhood — it was probably really only like 20 — and putting them in our plastic containers, called Bug Zoos.

Before long, the Bug Zoos were literally hopping, with a sound akin to popcorn popping.

But at the end of the day, we'd release them, and they'd return to the wild, perhaps a little shaken from their experiences at the hands of a fifth grader and a pre-schooler, but none the worse for wear.

Or the summers when my brother cups moths into his hands and escorts them through the house and back into the night.

Oh yes, Steven is very much an observer.

He'll try and find as many insects as he can for his grade, and the rest of us will support him as best we can.

But when the class is over and behind him, I know he'll slip back into casual observation and rescue mode once again.

That's his true nature.