insects, reptiles and stuff

As a kid growing up in East New York and spending summers in the Catskill Mountains playing with insects and reptiles was a big thing.  My brother used to play with ants and would stick his face to the ground watching them. He had a  big sore on his nose from age 2 to 3. That's how close he would get to those ants.  We used to  feed ants sugar, thinking they would grow to be giant ants like in the movie "Them".  There were a lot of bushes and big lawns in the projects. The bushes always had bees flying around the  flowering plants, mostly the white flowers.  I used to grab a bee by the wings and put them in a jar. The  cover of the jars always had a few holes punched in them.  I thought I was being kind to the bees, but they didn't last too long in the jars. I guess they need more than air to live.   Butterflies were fun to catch. The swallowtails were really hard to  catch. Those were  too fast. I think  maybe I only caught two of those in my life. Mostly it was the  yellow or white  smaller  butterflies or moths that we caught.  The wings would leave this magic powder on your fingers. I figured if I got enough of this stuff , maybe I could fly.  I never could get enough of it.
     Grasshoppers were pretty cool and really easy to catch. The big locusts were more difficult but we got those too. Lightning bugs or fireflies always amazed me.  I still can't figure out how they did that glow thing.  Centipedes were ok to catch and so were caterpillars.  Worms we would  catch just to fish with.  Daddy long legs for some reason were just there for us to pull their legs off.
     In the mountains, we used to walk through the woods and  hunt for salamanders. They were orange and  had some  spots on them. They looked like little dragons. I would get a big pickle jar, line it with ferns and  moss and rocks. It was  like  salamander world. We would probably catch  20 in a day. While hunting salamanders we would  catch toads and  wood frogs ( that's what we called them). I would  but those in the  pickle jar too. I was always afraid that  the toads would give me warts.  They said  if a frog peed on you , you would get warts. But the toads looked like they had warts all over them.  Bull frogs were  so hard to catch.  I did catch one  probably more than once. They were huge. I fell into the lake one time  trying to grab a  bull frog.
    Hornets I hated, i once was in a chicken coup and got a hornets nest down my back . OUCH. So wasps and hornets were mean , and I tried to avoid them. Ants were fascinating . How they all worked together  , always busy , always carrying things.   Garden Snakes or were they Garter Snakes,,they were harmless slithering things. We would catch these a lot and they were great for scaring  sisters, moms and girls in general.
     Nature is really fun.  Walking into a spider web is still pretty  messed up .  Yuck.