BUTTERFLIES--MOTHS--WASPS.
"How like a rainbow, sparkling as a dewdrop,
Glittering as gold, and lively as a swallow,
Each left his grave-shroud and in rapture winged him
Up to the heavens."
--ANON.
I have always been fascinated by the beauty of butterflies and moths,
and I think I began collecting when I was about eleven, as I remember
having a net when I was at school at Rottingdean. My first exciting
capture was a small tortoiseshell, and I was much disappointed when I
discovered that it was quite a common insect. In 1917 some nettles
here were black with the larvæ of this species, but I think they must
have been nearly all visited by the ichneumons, which pierce the skin,
laying their eggs in the living body of the larva, as the butterflies
were not specially common later. I was, however, fortunate in
identifying a specimen of the curious variety figured in Newman's
_British Butterflies_, variety 2, from one in Mr. Bond's collection;
it has a dark band crossing the middle of the upper wings, but, though
interesting, it is not so handsome as the type. I did not catch this
specimen, as I do not like killing butterflies now, but I had ample
leisure to observe it quite closely on the haulm of potatoes. It was
decidedly smaller than the type.
The old garden at Aldington in the repose of a June evening was a
place of fragrant joy from honeysuckle on poles and arches, and just
as the light was fading the huge privet hawk-moths, with quivering
wings and extended probosces, used to sip the honey from the long
blossoms. I could catch them in a net, but these specimens were nearly
all damaged from their energetic flight among the flowers, and perfect
ones are easy to rear from the larvæ, feeding in autumn on privet in
the hedges.
Later in the summer the Ghost Swift appeared about twilight, the white
colour of the male making it very conspicuous. Twilight at Aldington
is called "owl light," and moths of all kinds are "bob-owlets," from
their uneven flight when trying to evade the owls in pursuit. We often
see these birds "hawking" at nightfall in my meadows round the edge of
the Forest after moths.
The martagon lily flourished in the Aldington garden, and when they
were blooming the overpowering scent was particularly attractive to
moths of the _Plusia_ genus, including the Burnished Brass, the Golden
Y, and the Beautiful Golden Y, all exhibiting very distinctive
markings of burnished gold; and other _Noctuæ_ in great variety. The
latter are best taken by "sugaring"--painting patches of mixed beer
and sugar on a series of tree trunks, and making several rounds at
twilight with a lantern and a cyanide bottle. We had a sugaring range
of about seventy pollard withies by the brook side, and being well
sheltered, it was such a favourite place for moths, that it was often
difficult to select from each patch, swarming with sixty or seventy
specimens, those really worth taking. At sugaring moths are found in a
locality where they are never seen at other times, and rarities occur
quite unexpectedly. I took some specimens of _Cymatophora ocularis_
(figure of 80). Newman says: "It is always esteemed a rarity," and
mentions Worcester as a locality. _Mamestra abjecta_ was quite a
common catch, of which Newman writes:
"It seems to be very local, and so imperfectly known that
the recorded habitats must be received with great doubt; it
is certainly abundant on the banks of the Thames, near
Gravesend, and also on the Irish coast, near Waterford."
The marks of sugaring remain on tree trunks for many years. I lately
saw the faint remains on about sixty trees in Set Thorns plantation,
in the Forest, which a friend and I painted on nearly forty years ago.
This friend was fortunate in capturing the black variety of the White
Admiral, in which the white markings are entirely absent on the upper
side; and, thirty years later, his son took another near Burley. The
son also caught a Camberwell Beauty on one of his sugared patches in
the day-time. I believe this to be the only recorded instance of the
occurrence of this rare and beautiful insect in the Forest.
The Hornet Clearwing (_Sesia Apiformis_) is a very interesting moth,
and it was common at Aldington; the larva feeds on the wood of the
black poplar. The colouring of the moth so resembles the hornet, that
at first sight it is easily mistaken for the latter. It is an
excellent example of "mimicry," whereby a harmless insect acquires the
distinctive appearance of a harmful one, and so secures immunity from
the attacks of its natural enemies.
The larva of the Death's Head was not uncommon at Aldington and Badsey
on potatoes; I had a standing offer of threepence each for any that
the village children could bring me. These large caterpillars require
very careful handling, and I fear the children were not gentle enough
with them, as I only had one perfect specimen moth from all the larvae
they brought.
One of my hop-pickers captured and presented me with a very fine
specimen of the Convolvulus Hawk-moth at Aldington; they were
generally comparatively common that year (1901) and a collector took
no less than seventeen in a few days in the public garden at
Bournemouth.
The Clouded Yellow butterfly, whose appearance is very capricious,
occurred one summer in Worcestershire in considerable numbers; it is
strong on the wing and could easily reach the Midlands in fine weather
from the south of England, where it is more often seen. Those I saw
were flying high over clover fields, apparently in a hurry to get
further north-west.
The Marbled White is a somewhat local butterfly; there was a spot
along the Terrace on Cleeve Hill, near North Littleton and Cleeve
Prior, where, at the proper time, this insect was plentiful, but I
never saw it anywhere else in the neighbourhood.
One of the entomological prizes of the New Forest is the Purple
Emperor; it is impossible to do justice to the wonderful sheen of its
powerful wings. It inhabits the tops of lofty oaks, but does not
disdain to come down for a drink of water, sometimes from a muddy
pool, or even to feast on dead vermin which the keepers have
destroyed.
The Comma, so called from the C-mark on the under side of the hind
wings, is fairly plentiful in Worcestershire and Herefordshire in the
hop-districts, for the hop is its food plant; but it is curious that,
with the abundance of hops in Kent, Sussex, and Hants, it is quite a
rare insect in the south of England. The ragged edge of its hind wings
is probably an arrangement to baffle birds in pursuit, offering more
difficulty to securing a sure hold than is afforded by the even margin
of the hind wings of most butterflies.
In some years wasps were exceedingly troublesome at Aldington, and
fruit picking became a hazardous business. One of my men ploughed up a
nest in an open field, and was badly stung, though the horses, being
further from the nest when turned up, escaped. It is quite necessary
to destroy any nests on or near land where fruit is grown, as the
insects increase in numbers at a surprising rate, and they travel
great distances after food for the grubs. I had an instructive walk
over the fruit farm of my son-in-law, Mr. C.S. Martin, of Dunnington
Heath, near Alcester, with his cousin, Mr. William Martin, who is
extraordinarily clever at locating the nests. He quickly recognizes a
line of flight in which numbers of wasps can be seen going backwards
and forwards, in a well-defined cross-country track, follows it up and
locates the nest a long distance from where he first perceived the
line. In this way during our walk he found a dozen or more nests. In
the evening, when the inmates were at home, they were treated with a
strong solution of cyanide of potassium to destroy the winged insects;
and the next day the nests were dug out and the grubs destroyed, which
otherwise would become perfect wasps.
Lately it has become a custom to pay a half-penny each for all queen
wasps in the spring, but Mr. C.S. Martin, who had many years'
experience on the fruit plantations of the Toddington Orchard Company,
extending to about 700 acres, as well as on his own plantations at
Dunnington, writes to me as follows on the subject:
"To catch the queens in the spring is to my mind a waste of
time, and I discontinued paying for their capture, as the
number visible in the spring appeared to bear no relation to
the resulting summer nests. In the first place, the number
of queens in spring is always greatly in excess of the
numbers of nests, and to attempt to catch all the queens is
a hopeless job. As a rule, I don't think one per cent, ever
gets as far as a nest unless the weather conditions are very
favourable. Heavy rain, when the broods begin, may easily
wipe out 99 per cent., and only those on a dry bank will
survive. To pay a halfpenny per queen may be equivalent to
the payment of four and twopence per nest!"
Referring to the payment of school-children for the destruction of
white butterflies he writes:
"The white butterfly is extraordinarily prolific, and to
catch a few in the garden is a complete waste of time.
Again, weather conditions are largely responsible for the
occurrence of a bad attack, and the only possible time to
reduce the plague is in the caterpillar stage, with
hellebore powder, or one of the proprietary remedies,
applied to the young plants. Scientists recommend the
catching of queen wasps, and also butterflies, but I regard
this as a case where science is not strictly practical."
There is, of course, the danger, too, that children will not recognize
the difference between the female of the Orange Tip butterfly, which
is practically colourless, and the cabbage whites, and it would be
worse than a crime to destroy so joyous and welcome a creature, whose
advent is one of the pleasantest signs that summer is nigh at hand. I
have watched these fairy sprites dancing along the hedge sides at
Aldington year by year, and in May they were extraordinarily abundant
here, happily coursing round and round my meadow, and chasing each
other in the sunshine. The Orange Tip is quite innocent of designs
upon the homely cabbage, the food-plant of the caterpillar being
_Cardamine pratensis_ (the cuckoo flower), which Shakespeare speaks of
so prettily in the lines:
"When daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white."
Possibly Hood was thinking of the Orange Tip when he wrote the lines
that seem so well suited to them:
"These be the pretty genii of the flowers
Daintily fed with honey and pure dew."
A story is told of an undergraduate who united the hind wings of a
butterfly to the body and fore wings of one of a different species,
and, thinking to puzzle Professor Westwood, then the entomological
authority at Oxford, asked if the Professor could tell him "what kind
of a bug" it was. "Yes," was the immediate reply--"a humbug!"
One of my schoolfellows, a boy about eleven, at Rottingdean school,
and quite a novice at butterfly collecting, met a professional
"naturalist" on the Warren at Folkestone, who inquired what he had
taken. "Only a few whites," said the boy. The man looked at them and,
eventually, they negotiated an exchange, the boy accepting three or
four others for an equal number of the whites. On reaching home he
found that he had parted with specimens of the rare Bath White,
_Pieris daplidice_, for some quite common butterflies. The Bath White
is not recognized as a British species, Newman supposing the specimens
taken in this country to have been blown over or migrated from the
northern coast of France, as they have been rarely met with away from
the shores of Kent and Sussex.
It is surprising to find so many people who seem unable to exercise
their powers of observation to the extent of noticing the butterflies
they daily pass in the garden, or along the roads. One would expect
that the marvellous colouring of even our common butterflies would
arrest attention, and that interest in the names and life-history
would follow.
In June in the Forest the rather alarming stag-beetle is to be seen on
the wing on a warm evening; though really harmless, its size and habit
of buzzing round frightens people who are not acquainted with its
ways. They are called locally, "pinch-bucks," as their horns resemble
the antlers of a buck, and they can nip quite hard by pressing them
together. I once saw a fight between a stag-beetle and a toad, it had
evidently been proceeding for some time as both combatants were
exhausted, but neither had gained any special advantage.