#AMNH - Butterflies are gone for now but...
Dear Diary:
The Museum of Natural History stocks a range of souvenirs for its exhibit of live tropical butterflies, but airborne samples are not among them. In that spirit, as we left the Butterfly Conservatory one recent evening, my friend Liza and I checked our clothes for hitchhikers. It was thus a surprise to discover after arriving home, a block away, an elegant mothlike creature flying room to room. What to do? The museum had closed for the night and the Costa Rican houseguest (Hamadryas februa, gender indeterminate, a k a gray cracker) was now our responsibility. There was no enticing it into the chilly New York air. In the end we lured it, via an empty Chinese food tray laced with New Zealand honey and Vermont syrup, into a bathroom steamed up to near-sauna temperature. Morning found the stowaway happily asleep, wings spread on the damp wall.
And so, the three of us marched down Central Park West to the conservatory. The curators said it was the first time an escapee had returned. The gray cracker, meanwhile, wasted little time rejoining friends — no doubt regaling them with tales of a wider world with sunlight, skyscrapers and not enough flowers.
D. G. Feuchtwanger
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