In Pursuit of Butterflies Read online

  It took decades for the English names of our butterflies to be agreed, as different names were assigned by different pioneer authors. For example, the Silver-washed Fritillary was originally recorded (in 1699) as the Greater Silver-streaked Fritillary, and eleven years later another author named it the Silver-stroaked Fritillary. Then, in 1717, the sexes, which differ visibly, were named as separate species: the Greater Silverstreakt Orange Fritillary (males) and the Greater Silverstreakt Golden Fritillary (females). In a book of 1769 the insect was recognised as a single species, called the Great Fritillary, just after the names Silver-washed Fritillary and Silver-wash Fritillary, a variant, had been introduced by another author. The Victorians finally opted for the Silver-washed Fritillary, and we should be grateful to them for settling matters down. Only now it all too often appears as the silver-washed fritillary, for the lowercase is in vogue – wrongly so in my opinion, as it hinders or confuses adjectival use.

  Since the late Victorian era the English names have remained relatively constant, bar a few shifts and changes. For example, what I learnt as the Duke of Burgundy Fritillary has since reverted to an older name, the Duke of Burgundy. Additionally, the Small Mountain Ringlet became the ordinary Mountain Ringlet, and the Hedge Brown became known as the Gatekeeper. No one knows how His Grace the Duke of Burgundy received that name in the first place, any reasoning being lost in the mists of entomological antiquity.

  If anything, the common names of moths are even more capti­vating. Many of the family names are wonderful: there are families of footman moths, hawkmoths, hooktips, pugs, underwings and wainscots. Many of the individual species names are remarkable, often in the extreme, with the Clifden Nonpareil and Death's Head Hawkmoth being unforgettable. Other truly wondrous British moth names include The Alchymist, Brussels Lace, Chimney Sweeper, Double Kidney, Emperor Moth and Feathered Gothic. Merveille du Jour and True Lover's Knot are also impressive, but the pick of the bunch has to be the Setaceous Hebrew Character, a thoroughly boring common grey moth that irritates moth enthusiasts by being annoyingly abundant in moth traps in late summer. This was also the nickname of Baron Charles de Worms (1904–1980), on account of his Austrian-Jewish ancestry and him being distinctly hairless and notably eccentric. The Baron will make a spectacular entry into this book in due course.

  The scientific names of the bulk of our butterflies were determined by the father of scientific nomenclature, Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778). Greek and Latin were used by the likes of Linnaeus in an attempt to find a universal language. Scientific names can be rather a mouthful, especially for anyone who was, perhaps mercifully, not taught the Classics. And as if two names in a strange tongue are not enough, sometimes there is a third, identifying the subspecies.

  In the scientific names of British butterflies, Greek dominates amongst both the genus and the species names. Some of our butterflies have a Greek genus and a Latin specific name, such as Thymelicus (Greek) sylvestris (Latin), the Small Skipper. Occasionally, a hybrid word between Greek and Latin is used, to the deep chagrin of true Classicists, and a few of our butterfly names are non-Classical in origin (some are Biblical).

  In terms of individual species names, 28 of our resident butterflies are named after characters in Greek mythology. These include four gods or demi-gods: Cinxia (Glanville Fritillary), Iris (Purple Emperor), Paphia (Silver-washed Fritillary) and Palaemon (Chequered Skipper). In addition, Thalia (Heath Fritillary, known as athalia), Euphrosyne (Pearl-bordered Fritillary) and Aglaia (Dark Green Fritillary) were Muses and/or Graces. Also, Lucina (Duke of Burgundy) was the Roman goddess of childbirth and of the spring.

  On the debit side, three of our butterflies are named after young ladies who were ravished by Zeus: Antiopa (Camberwell Beauty), Io (Peacock) and Semele (Grayling). Poor Io had a particularly hard time of it: Zeus took a fancy to the wench but Hera, Mrs Zeus, who was also his older sister, objected and turned the poor girl into a heifer. Not to be outdone, Zeus transformed himself into a bull and, to complete the agricultural allusion, served the heifer. Worse befell hapless Semele, who mothered the god Dionysius (Bacchus). Jealous Hera persuaded the girl to ask Zeus to appear before her in his full splendour. This proved too much for a mortal girl, who spontaneously combusted.

  Several other characters met sticky ends, notably Actaeon (Lulworth Skipper), who, whilst out hunting, came across the goddess Artemis bathing. Fatally, he chose to watch, voyeuristically, and was spotted, then duly chased and eaten by his own hounds. Tithonus (Gatekeeper) was a Trojan youth to whom Eos, the goddess of the dawn, took a fancy; she persuaded the powers that be to grant him everlasting life, but stupidly forgot to ask for everlasting youth, so that the boy withered away and was last seen hopping about as a grasshopper or a cicada (depending on the source).

  Other celebrities include Argus (Silver-studded Blue), a hundred-eyed monster who failed to protect Io from the ravages of Zeus after being instructed to do so by Mrs Zeus; Arion (Large Blue), a singer–poet who was thrown overboard, for singing and/or reciting long after being asked and then ordered to stop, and was rescued by dolphins who actually liked hearing him; Atalanta (Red Admiral), a famous beauty and athlete who raced her suitors and killed them if they lost, until one cheated and won her; Icarus (Common Blue), an early and unsuccessful pioneer of flight, who used waxed feathers that melted when he flew too close to the sun; and Machaon (Swallowtail), a Greek doctor in the Trojan wars, who may possibly have existed.

  Some of our butterflies are named after particularly obscure Greeks. Most notable here are Hyperantus (Ringlet) and Pamphilus (Small Heath), two of the fifty sons of Aegyptus, who did little other than beget those fifty sons. They were betrothed to, and slaughtered on their communal wedding night by, their female cousins, the fifty daughters of Danaus. Why any of this took place remains unclear, as are the connections with two of our more mundane butterflies.

  Thirteen of our butterflies are named after plants with which they are supposed to be associated. These are mostly Latin names, such as cardui (Painted Lady), which simply means ‘of thistle’; rubi (Green Hairstreak), which means ‘of bramble’; and quercus (Purple Hairstreak), the Latin for oak. These three butterflies are all associated with these plants, weakly so in the case of the Green Hairstreak. A few of our butterflies have been seriously misnamed after inappropriate plants, notably the Wood White, which is wrongly named sinapis after the mustard family, with which it has no association, and the Brown Hairstreak, which is inappropriately named after the Latin for birch, Betula, whereas it breeds on Blackthorn, Prunus. It is downright absurd that these two erroneous names remain in use when so many other names have been altered by zealous taxonomists.

  The names of six of our butterflies are derived from words that supposedly describe their appearance, habit or habitat. Thus sylvestris (Small Skipper) means ‘of the wood’, which is odd as it is a grassland insect; lineola (Essex Skipper) is a descriptive term meaning a small line, referring to the male sex brand on the forewing upperside; whereas the Clouded Yellow, Large Tortoiseshell and Scotch Argus are named after colours – croceus (saffron-coloured), polychloros (pale green) and aethiops (dark-coloured). Neither Emmet nor the youthful Oates was able to determine the origins of the names of the Brown Argus (agestis) and the humble Meadow Brown (jurtina).

  The names of the genera (plural of genus) have similar origins. Ten generic names are derived from Greek or Roman personages. These include Cupid, the Roman god of love, after whom we have the genus Cupido, which includes our Small Blue, though in Latin the word cupido is the verb for desire. The Dingy Skipper belongs to the genus Erynnis, derived from the Erynyes or Greek Furies, a gang of nasty winged creatures that mercilessly harried wrongdoers. This is an appropriate name for this belligerent butterfly. Pieris, the genus of the true whites, is named after one of the Muses, and Aricia, the genus of the brown arguses, is named after the stepdaughter of Theseus, a Greek hero. Some of the generic names are pure biological description, such as Carterocephalus (genus t
hat includes our Chequered Skipper), which means strong-headed; Anthocharis (genus that includes our Orange-tip), which effectively means ‘grace of a flower’ in Greek; and Lasiommata (genus that includes our Wall Brown), which means hairy-eyed. The genus Thymelicus (Small and Essex skippers) comes from one of the chorus members in Greek drama, a dancer. Finally, and importantly, the genus Papilio (swallowtails) uses the Latin noun for a butterfly.

  Aberrations (or variations) that have been formally described have a more varied name base. Again, many are derived from classical figures or from Greek or Latin terms, but many have been named after entomologists, and a few after places. You cannot name an aberration after yourself, but an aberration can take your name if given it by someone else – for example, if created in your memory. The term aberration is almost invariably shortened to ab., as in ab. nigrina, the rare all-black colour form of the White Admiral. Aberration names, like specific names, always take the lowercase, even when named after a person or place, and are italicised. Some aberration names are clearly designed to generate serious angst amongst teenage Latin scholars. For example, ab. lugenda, the nearly all-purple form of the Purple Emperor, is an example of one of the nastiest devices in language – a declined gerundive (feminine), the sort of thing that is used as a weapon of mass destruction by Classics teachers. Lugenda here means mournfulness.

  Taxonomists (Whom God Preserve) will not even leave the names of aberrations alone. What I learnt as ab. iole has largely been replaced by the name ab. lugenda, and rather downgraded in the process. Iole was indirectly responsible for the death of Heracles (Hercules), the ultimate Greek hero. Heracles set out to win Iole, a princess of excessive beauty, even though he was already married to the ageing Deianeira. Iole resisted, totally, even after Heracles had won her fair and square in an archery contest and had slain her family in front of her, and she had thrown herself out of the window. Chaste, lovely beyond bounds and utterly unattainable, she was eventually wedded and bedded by one of Heracles's sons, after Heracles himself had been accidentally poisoned by Deianeira. Heracles died in agony and Deianeira committed suicide. The lesson is simple: do not on any account aspire after the likes of Iole, as attaining the unattainable brings disaster. Technically, ab. iole of the Purple Emperor still exists, although it is now not allowed to have any vestige of white on it whatsoever, such that I am unsure whether any true specimens exist in museums. Nonetheless, true ab. iole is the main thing I am seeking on this earth. As Heracles appreciated, one needs targets.

  Only a few aberration names readily make sense, such as ab. obscura (the dark version of several species), and many make little if any sense at all. Sometimes, especially with some of the blues, a specimen may be an example of more than one aberration. Thus, in the Chalkhill Blue, of which over 400 aberrations were listed by Bright and Leeds in their 1938 monograph of this highly variable species, multi-variation specimens exist which are described as being ab. fowleri + alba and ab. antiextrema + postalba + limbojunct. The record is undoubtedly held by a specimen H A Leeds named as ab. infrasemisyngrapha + grisealutescens + albocrenata, which involves a staggering 44 letters. The old entomologists took language into pastures new. They also knew their Latin and Greek, having been exceedingly well taught by the likes of Emmet and Kegley.

  The scientific terms for the four stages of a butterfly's life cycle are borrowed from the Latin. You would therefore think that the terms ovum (plural ova), larva (larvae), pupa (pupae) and imago (imagines) are from the Latin words for egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly. Sure enough, ovum directly translates as egg, but larva is the Latin for a ghost or mask, pupa means a doll, and imago means what it looks like, an image or appearance. It is hard to determine why these odd words were chosen. For the record, the Latin for a caterpillar is eruca, for a chrysalis is chrysallis, which is borrowed from the Greek, and for a butterfly is papilio.

  Classicists get rather worked up over the way science has transmogrified and bastardised the languages of Homer and Vergil for its own convoluted purposes. Taxonomists now change the scientific names with surprising regularity, so frequently in fact that it is small wonder that people choose today to use the English names. But in the 1960s even schoolboys tended to use the Latin or Greek names, with relish, not least because it provided some justification for the hours spent learning two dead and seemingly impossible languages. The truth is that these names are an integral part of the butterflying experience, as they have acoustic resonance and are genuinely musical. They also assist the natural tendency many of us have to anthropomorphise about butterflies beyond the bounds of reason. Above all, butterfly enthusiasts become strongly attached to the names, English and scientific, which they learn as beginners – a point apparently lost on taxonomists in museum underworlds or university research blocks. This must surely be because the names themselves are integral to the precious memories that butterflying engenders.

  6 Desperately seeking Rima

  In the high summer of 1973 the Sussex woods provided a most necessary haven from the unreality of student life. July, however, was wild, wet and windy, matching what was going on in my mind. During the winter some bright spark had constructed a slurry lagoon in one of the better Purple Emperor woods in Southwater Forest, down towards Dragons Green. By mid-July the lagoon was half-full of glistening, stinking dairy slurry. Had the weather been hot and sunny this might have constituted a gigantean attraction for Purple Emperors, which – like many tropical butterflies – do not feed from flowers but are renowned for favouring unsavoury substances. But the hot weather had been and gone, and had in part been spent on an expedition into the Highlands west of Fort William, in pursuit of what proved to be the last Chequered Skippers and Pearl-bordered Fritillaries of the year, and a multitude of Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries. I was lucky to find the skipper, for in those days there were no books, let alone websites, telling of localities. Indeed, localities for the rarer species were kept as closely guarded secrets. One had to explore, and explore one did. With the Pearl-bordered Fritillaries, it was odd to see familiar butterflies in such unfamiliar terrain, in this case no longer creatures of young conifer plantations in clay woodland but of lightly grazed bracken hillsides above a loch-side path along which the Bonnie Prince had fled after Culloden. The fritillaries looked different too, with darker spots on the hindwing undersides. Strangely, this expedition was not recorded in my diaries, so the memories are vague.

  But the Emperor was calling, and would be dutifully recorded. I arrived in my old woods on July 14th, to find a Jay's feather lying on the ride for me and the Emperor emerging in remarkably good numbers. In keeping with the weather, the males were in a foul mood that season, vicious and violent, chasing each other, and small birds, around with malevolent intent, especially around the shrubby fringes of the slurry lagoon. There I witnessed a Great Spotted Woodpecker shriek in fear, and a Chiffchaff panic like Piglet pursued by a heffalump. Over Osiris's birches there was even an assault on a passing Heron, which croaked in surprise. The Dragons Green Emperors remain the most violent I have encountered, though their numbers are now considerably reduced. That season, the males were repeatedly searching the tops of the sallows and birches that fringed the pungent lagoon, especially during the mid to late morning period. If you could put up with the smell the lagoon was an amazing place to watch their antics. Years later I realised what they were up to: they were searching the sallows for freshly emerged females in need of male services, ‘sallow searching’ as I termed it. This they do in some if not all localities, until all the females are out and mated.

  By 1973 I had gone through the stage of wanting to find which butterflies were out and about, where and when, and was critically observing what they were doing, and asking why. Why on earth did it just do that? What is it seeking? Had I been a science student, rather than a failing English scholar, I might have done much better. But in terms of depth of experience the ten days spent in the woods during the height of the 1973 Purple Emperor season were pr
ofoundly memorable.

  I even netted my very first Purple Emperor, my first specimen of Apatura iris. Previously, I had only had one genuine chance, by the Madgeland gate on July 26th 1971, which I botched badly, for in those days the Emperors seldom flew lower than 4 metres in Southwater Forest, and then only momentarily and at speed. During that era in those woods they fed high up, in the trees, and seldom if ever sought minerals from the forest floor. But now, pleased with my success, I carefully carried the male in my binoculars case up to the old school to be photographed by a delighted Norman Fryer, then released it back home. Later I netted a second, older male. In contrast to the established custom, these specimens were released unharmed – raising the question of why catch them in the first place? The truth is that this butterfly had entrapped me, rather than the other way round. I also watched a female feed from sap running from a wound where two oak branches had rubbed together. That sap run was utilised for the following two years. The branches remain today, fused together, but have long since died. In the near future they will descend to earth together, perhaps in an autumn gale. And as for the slurry lagoon, it was never used by farmer or Emperor again. Doubtless the taxpayer had funded it. In time it scrubbed over, with sallows, and was reclaimed by the Emperor as a breeding ground.

  The White Admirals were up to something that year. On July 16th I spotted my first ‘Black Admiral’, what is now known as ab. obliterae but was then called ab. semi-nigrina. This is the aberration (or variation) with significantly reduced white bars. The diary recalls: It looked very small and black in flight, for the white bars give L. camilla its size. Indeed, I almost mistook it for an odd-flying Ringlet. Two more specimens were seen in other parts of Southwater that summer. I had never dreamt it possible to see such a beast, though an Old Blue I once met out collecting in Marlpost Wood had informed me that both ab. semi-nigrina and even the much rarer ab. nigrina, the all-black Admiral, had been collected by boys at the school there during the Second World War.