Selection of East Lothian Moths 5

This is the drawer of micro-moths. There is only one error – one of the moths labelled Garden Pebble is Udea lutealis. To me it is looks quite obvious that the two moths are different and for the misidentified moth on the right it even says lutealis on the label. Was William Edgar Evans aware of the error? Perhaps he didn’t feel it important for his purposes? The other moths in this drawer that caught my attention were Grapholita nisella. Correctly labelled in a beautifully clear script, these are moths that were caught by Alice Balfour and were once part of her collection. Through my interest in Alice Balfour’s moth recording I knew that she was a great admirer of William Evans and spent time collecting with him and exchanging records. No doubt she knew the young William Edgar Evans too. Further evidence of their association is seen in another pair of moths in this drawer, Ceristoma laburnella. These were collected by William Evans from Whittingehame, Alice Balfour’s estate. Nice to see some specimens that show the connection between these two naturalists.

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