butterfly release

Anne Kilmer viceroy at gate.net
Wed May 21 08:20:00 EDT 1997


SELMIER at delphi.com wrote:
A happy thought ... one can only hope
 
>          We've all heard of Mrs Belmont's dinner on horseback for 300
> 
>      or so of her closest friends from New York society. Another less
> 
>      known but equally impressive Gilded Age even was the dinner thrown
> 
>      by one John Paul of Philadelphia in 1906. At the end of the festive
> 
>      evening, a cake was wheeled in and cut open and 10,000 exotic and
> 
>      imported tropical butterflies were released. Having been confined
> 
>      for several hours and straining toward the hot lights, 9,997 of
> 
>      them keeled over immediately. Pas grande chose, however, because Paul
> 
>      had another cake waiting in the wings with 10,000 more.
> 
>          Unfortunately, the same conditions applied to the second team and
> 
>      exactly the same number of them keeled over when released.
> 
>          Ah, those were the days. People were more important than butterflies
> 
>      then. Perhaps people were nicer than butterflies then. Who knows?
> 
>          Bill

let's stick with habitat preservation and restoration if we wish to help 
the bugs. People already like butterflies. Caterpillars they dislike, 
but releases won't correct that. 
Anne Kilmer
Florida


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