Drawer 2:

Selection of East Lothian Moths 1

This is the first drawer of moths. Large hawk-moths are prominent and perhaps the most eye-catching is a Death’s-head Hawk-moth. The writing on one side of its label tells us it was collected from Ardpeaton, Loch Long in 1901, on the other side we learn that it weighed 1/3 oz! The Convolvulus Hawk-moth was from Dunbar, also in 1901. An article by Evans reports that he found two larvae of this species on a railway embankment in Dunbar in this year. A good find! It is very unusual to find caterpillars of this Hawk-moth in Scotland, and presumably this was one of the resulting adults?

Nestled between the striking red and blacks of Burnets and Cinnabars are two species that have been wrongly identified. Short-cloaked Moth is currently a widespread and reasonably common moth in England and Wales, but there have never been any confirmed records from Scotland. The specimen here is in fact Least Black Arches. Below that a pair labelled “Common Footman” are in fact Buff Footman. Although both these species of footmen now occur in southern Scotland, a hundred years ago they were much rarer with Buff Footman confined to southern England and Common Footman only reported very infrequently in Scotland. Incorrect specimen/label aside, a Footman of any sort seems a curious choice to represent East Lothian moths of the time. However, an even more unlikely choice is the striking Black Arches. This is a moth I would love to see, but there are no records of it further north than Yorkshire. These must surely have got into a moths of East Lothian drawer based purely on their good looks. Without any details on any of these moths’ labels their true provenance is unknown, but it seems unlikely they were caught in the wild in Scotland.

The specimen that really drew my attention in this drawer was a fantastic Goat Moth. There are no records of this moth from south east Scotland in the National Moth Recording Scheme but here is a moth reared from a caterpillar found in a willow tree at Luffness (Aberlady). With the date 1904 I was able to search the natural history journals of the time and sure enough William Evans published this find in 1905. The caterpillar was found and reared by W. Renton who gave him the resulting adult specimen.

In the same article we can also learn more of the Lunar Hornet Moth specimens in the drawer, which are rather charmingly labelled Hornet Clear-wing of the Osier. One was taken from willows at Luffness in 1898 and one from Kirknewton in 1899. Of these moths Evans writes “(I) feel sure the insect has long been not uncommon in the district, but overlooked”. The status of Lunar Hornet Moths has remained much the same to this day with widespread but very infrequent records. However 2020 has seen the availability of a pheromone lure to buy, so maybe the days of overlooking this species are finally over.