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Winter Butterflies in Bolinas

9781465664235
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
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Overview
The Monarch Butterfly Anosia Plexippus is a familiar object in many parts of the United States, but the fact that it migrates, covering in its flights hundreds and even thousands of miles, is not generally known. This butterfly appears in immense swarms every year early in September at Bolinas, a sheltered haven on the coast of California, about ten miles north of the Golden Gate. A southerly beach walled by high bluffs, a quaint little village which consists of trim cottages set in pretty, old-fashioned gardens; wide stretches of sunny mesa, broken here and there by arroyos and groves of cypress trees, make up a picturesque landscape; while to the south and westward rolls the vast Pacific, the ceaseless surging of its surf on the smooth sand a never-ending delight to the ear. This is the winter home of the Monarch butterfly which comes not only from the Sierra Nevada mountains but also from the western ranges of the Rockies. On the meadows of these mountains a pale green caterpillar, ornamented with glossy black bands, feeds on the leaves of the milkweed plant. This caterpillar forms a chrysalis about an inch long, green spotted with gold. The Monarch butterfly emerges from this chrysalis, unfurls its wings, draws its sustenance from the milkweed blossoms, lays its eggs and lives happily in the high altitudes till the chill of approaching autumn in the air warns it that the time for migrating has come. Thousands of these frail butterflies start on their long journey toward the Pacific, in search of a mild climate, free from frost and snow, in which they can live all winter.

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