6
brown-eye" or "brown-line bright-eye", one snaps
out "oleracea" or "conigera". A few species
cannot be identified in the field and must be
taken home: for example, a sample of five will
generally include both the dark and grey daggers.
It is sometimes necessary to keep a voucher
specimen of an unexpected record; otherwise
it will be rejected by the entomological panel of
the Essex Naturalists' Trust. I may keep one
or two for my own collection. The rest of the
catch (on average 99% of the total) is liberated
on the spot.
The most wonderful part has been the friendships
made and the interest stimulated There is no
shortage of recording sites since our hosts send
us on to their brothers, uncles, daughters and
friends. In one instance I found I had been at
school with my host's father, both of us in the
same boarding-house; moreover at his own school
he had been taught his "A"-Levels by my cousin.
Another, who was a retired colonial civil servant,
had been a colleague of a close friend. One
father found that a butterfly net had become his
son's first choice for a birthday present and
another bought his son a light-trap. On one
visit to the latter I brought two traps with me,
David having lent me a second while he was on
holiday. With three traps we really lit the
village up; we ran one at the pub and that it pays
to advertise was proved when a villager brought
in a live convolvulus hawk-moth. His brother's
sons made their own trap out of an old washing
machine; on its first night of operation it
attracted over 50 species. Their father remembered
he had inherited a generator and we ran the light
in one of his woods. Since the petrol tank was
too small to keep the generator running all night,
he invented an ingenious self-filling system which
worked perectly. In the case of another farmer,