7.
THE HAWKMOTHS OF A WEST ESSEX GARDEN
I suppose most people regard moths as
rather uninteresting drab-coloured creatures
that fly at night and are very dowdy looking
in comparison with their Butterfly relatives.
However, not all moths fly at night and many
of them are far from dowdy as a close examin-
ation of any moth collection will show,
particularly in the family Sphingoidea, the
Hawkmoths, which contains some of our largest
and most strikingly coloured insects.
The native species are not uncommon and
many will fly about our gardens in town and
country unknown and unseen on warm humid
nights. The regular use of a mercury vapour
lamp in or out of a moth-trap will soon
reveal which species are present. It can be
quite an experience to hear a rustling in the
trees and sen a large dark object approach at
high speed and land with a sudden thud in the
trap.
Some Hawkmoths are day fliers and in a
hot summer the Humming-bird Hawk will visit
gardens, usually as an immigrant from the
continent, and hover among the flowers of the
Jasmine, Buddleia or Tobacco Plants which it
favours, probing each in turn with its very
long tongue.
My first serious contact with one of
these creatures was during one summer in the
1950s when the Largest British species, the
Death's-head Hawk took a temporary liking to
my greenhouse. 1 well remember the skull
and crossbone markings on its thorax. 1959
appears to have been a good year for Humming-
bird Hawks for there were two separate visits
to my Buddleia in September and a third on