This is the story of Flutter. Flutter was a monarch butterfly who flew merrily around the grounds of Princeton Junior School. One day in August, during Nature Week summer camp, one of the children caught Flutter in an insect net. The children put Flutter on a milkweed plant, then placed a cage over her so she could not escape. They also added some flowers inside the cage so she had nectar to eat. Well, Flutter did what her instincts told her to do -she laid eggs. Lots of them. All over the plant When the children discovered that she had laid so many eggs and done her job well, they gave Flutter lots of kisses and set her free. |
In three days, the eggs hatched. The caterpillars were so tiny!
The Fairy Garden Mother knew that she had to protect the caterpillars from a type of fly that could hurt them, so she took the caterpillars to her home. The Garden Mother gave the caterpillars all the milkweed they could eat. They grew, and grew, and grew!
After devouring milkweed for ten days , the caterpillars made their third change. They formed chrysalids. But they formed them all over the Fairy Garden Mother's house. On the curtains, under the table, along the fireplace. They did this because they always leave their host plant, the milkweed they had been eating, to form their chrysalids. So the Fairy Garden Mother very, very carefully pulled them off her curtains and furniture and tied them onto the twigs of a branch. The children called it the Chrysalis Tree. The chrysalids looked like beautiful green jewels dotted with metallic gold spots.
Flutter's babies hung from the tree in their sleeping bags while they were changing into their final form. On the tenth day, the children could see wings of the monarch butterfly in many of the chrysalids.
Over the next three days, Flutter's babies emerged from their chrysalids. At first their bodies were fat and their wings were tiny. They pumped the fluid from their bodies into their wings.
Soon they looked like perfect copies of their beautiful mother.
As soon as their wings were dry, Flutter's babies were carefully placed in a flight cage with some flowers.
TO BE CONTINUED.....