‘Thus hath the candle singed the moth. O these deliberate fools! When they do choose, They have the wisdom by their wit to lose’ Portia, ‘The Merchant of Venice’ by William Shakespeare (Act II, Scene 9)
MOTHS. What are they but the poor cousins of butterflies? Although butterflies jig and jive in the brilliant sunshine, moths are condemned to the night, unseen. Unless, that is, they flutter, crazed, into a light bulb or candle flame, as if they themselves had a burning desire to leave their prison darkness and become butterflies. When moths do enter our time and place, the daylight world, they come as pests. Our clothes are moth-eaten.
Yet do not the moths have their mysteries and their beauties? For how else could they have such fabulous names? We could fill a book with the poetry of British moth nomenclature, beginning with bilberry tortrix, glaucous shears, coxcomb prominent, Hebrew character, least yellow underwing, peach blossom. Who would not wish to