I wrote to my cousin Martha who lives in Barton, Vermont about the mysterious disappearance of the monarchs. If anyone would have noticed this, it would be Martha. Here is her response. Lepidoptera. Hmmm.
"No! Not a single one here, either. They migrate in two stages (one involving Central America, the other the Carolinas) and apparantly the weather in both places scrambled both the mating and migration patterns . And the butterfly gap goes beyond Monarchs -- last summer I raised several Black Swallowtails (plenty of caterpillars on the local Dill) but this time around, nary a one to be seen. Disaster! The Lepidoptera equivalent of Silent Spring! Let's hope things get back to normal next time nd! -- M"
Martha has collected butterflies all her life. With net in hand, she would head up the road to the pasture near the place in southern Quebec where our families spent each summer together. Our mothers were sisters.
In that bee-loud glade (yes, Mom, I do remember the line from Yeats) amidst goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace, she caught a wide variety of ....lepidoptera. Back at the Hemlocks, she carefully pinned them to white felt and framed them. I suppose she made the small wooden frames as well. The walls of our summer cottage were covered with them.
1 comment:
Ah yes, Barb, thanks for the fond memory.
While in Costa Rica, I collected moths the size of my hand (found dead on the school's walkways in the early morning) and sent them, along with numerous butterflies, to Martha
who probably has them carefully stashed someplace.
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