Somewhere in there are a couple of lovely butterflies. At first, when they appeared in mass about a week ago, I thought they were Monarchs, but it turns out they are what are called Painted Ladies in English or Belles dames in French. The differences are obvious, when you see them side by side, but if you're not a butterfly expert, they're hard to distinguish.
Needless to say, Montrealers have been delighted to see so many of the beautiful creatures flitting around in these amazingly warm last days of summer/first days of fall. All very normal, we're told. A spring and summer that led to great success for the butterflies when it came to reproduction, plus this unusually warm weather after a wet summer.
Okay, I'll accept that, and not let my climate paranoia lead me to worry that the reason I haven't seen anything like this before is not a harbinger of more damage to the planet. So I'll keep my comment to a linguistic one. The names for the butterfly in French and English say a lot about the cultures--or what the cultures were in the 19th century when many plants and animals were catalogued. Quite simply, something lovely in French could easily be named
Belle dame, but in English a moralizing quirk led to
Painted Lady which we all know is up to no good.
Would that the French are right!
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