Contributed image This watercolor, by Devon Hogan, age 7, was inspired by a monarch butterfly that she hatched last summer. (Click for larger image)

Last monarchs

By ED WESELY

THE RIVER VALLEY — On November 1, when the thermometer hit 67 degrees, a monarch butterfly drifted through Honesdale, on a hilltop above Wayne Memorial Hospital. Whether this little creature, so late in the year, can complete a 2200-mile journey to central Mexico is problematic. But as it sailed away, to cross a fence and a line of trees, it kindled our deep respect and, in me, a whispered prayer for its success.

Five days later, a monarch that I’d reared indoors—and called “Lexie” for a neighbor’s five-year old—began its own voyage, in the car of friends.

I’d found Lexie’s egg on a milkweed leaf on September 4 and brought it home, knowing that outdoors its larva would be overtaken by frost. In fact, Lexie molted into a chrysalis in a little container on my desk on October 9, when the morning temperature had dipped to 28 degrees.

My notes record the snail’s pace of the insect’s development. On September 8, Lexie hatched into a caterpillar, was transformed into a chrysalis on October 9, and emerged as a male butterfly on October 28. This process, that zips along in mid-summer in 23 or 24 days, took more than seven weeks on my desk. It highlights how cooler nights, even in a mild autumn such as this one, can retard development and expose butterfly larvae to lethal cold.

The following week, after an early morning accident—when Lexie launched from the kitchen counter into a spider web—I secured him in a small cage and delivered him to Leonard and Avis Rolston. As their passenger, he’d gain freedom and a chance to test his wings in South Carolina or Georgia, where the two were traveling.

	Photo by Kim Hogan Devon Hogan and Ed Wesely search a small milkweed plant for monarch butterfly eggs. Devon was a camper last July at Camp Skycrest, operated by the Easton, Pennsylvania YMCA on a beautiful site near Indian Orchard. (Click for larger image)

Meanwhile, a very special monarch, that I call “Crinkle,” is enjoying the hospitality of Katie and Susie Robinson in Bethany. Because of an accident after she hatched, Crinkle’s wings resemble crumpled tissue paper, which confines her to a homey cage that Katie and Susie built when I agreed to let them care for Crinkle.

Katie and Susie are middle school students. Another friend of Crinkle’s is Kelsey Kohrs, a fourth grader at Lakeside Elementary. Kelsey helped Crinkle and I perform school programs last month, and believes that “butterflies are the best pets. They are very friendly, and nice to take care of. Crinkle will never fly and needs someone to feed her.”

To celebrate the close of the 2001 monarch season, I’ve excerpted verses by Katie and Susie Robinson from a poem they composed as a farewell present to Lexie—which I fastened to his cage the morning he left Milanville.

Take Flight

Butterfly come out and play
Out of your chrysalis come today
Stretching out your wings, oh my
Fluttering them as they dry.

Oh beautiful little butterfly
Reaching up for the sky
With soft and gentle wings
Such joy and peace you bring.

Your wings now take flight
As you soar in the sunlight
So lovely to behold
The color of amber and gold.