"...a place called Karner, where in some pine barrens, on lupines,
a little blue butterfly I have described and named ought to be out."
-Vladimir Nabokov
Because it used to be more populous in Illinois.
Because its wingspan is an inch.
Because it requires blue lupine.
Because to become blue, it has to ingest the leaves of a
blue plant.
Because its scientific name, Lycaeides melissa samuelis,
is mellifluous.
Because the female is not only blue but blue and orange
and silver and black.
Because its beauty galvanizes collectors.
Because Nabokov named it.
Because its collection is criminal.
Because it lives in black oak savannahs and pine barrens.
Because it once produced landlocked seas.
Because it has declined ninety per cent in
fifteen years.
Because it is.