Selection of East Lothian Moths 2

The moths of this drawer are a bit less varied than those of the previous drawer. One of the more striking, the Argent and Sable is the only species that is out of place in a line-up of East Lothian’s moths. In Scotland, this is a western species and even there not very common. Maybe the intention was to represent the much smaller Small Argent and Sable, a moth that both the Evans’ would have seen in parts of East Lothian. And although more restricted in range now, it can still be found in the Lammermuir Hills.

There are a few mistaken identities in this drawer. The Grass Rivulet is in fact a Small Rivulet. Both these rivulets would and still do occur in East Lothian though Small Rivulet is the more widespread. Perhaps William Edgar merely got mixed up with the names: there are several superficially similar species of rivulet moths, all occurring in the region. He knew it was one of them, he just got the wrong one! A less excusable error is in the next column: one pair of July High-fliers are correctly identified, a couple of rows above another pair are incorrectly labelled Pine Carpet. Pine Carpet is quite different in appearance and it is curious that the identity of May High-flier, a species that might be confused with July High-flier, is correct. It makes me wonder if these mistakes were made William Edgar Evans, and if so if he knew he was making them. Other difficult to distinguish pairs in this drawer are Mottled Grey and Early Tooth-striped but they have been correctly labelled, so he certainly knew something about moths. Was he just being careless with his labels? Finally the moths labelled Chevron are in fact Shaded Broad-bars. Shaded Broad-bar is a common moth often seen by day in grassy areas. It flies on the coast here now and most probably did a hundred years ago. Chevron is also quite a common moths but more restricted in habitat and tends to be most frequent in moorland areas.

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