T
ravels in search of rare insects.
Richard Weaver was a very active professional collector, travelling the length and breadth of Britain. The collector Wallace in 1832 recorded that Weaver had explored many parts of England and Wales. The following are a few of the species that he either found as new to Britain or science or are noteworthy because the population occurring in this country is now extinct.
Rosy Marsh Moth, Coenophila subrosea Stephens 1829. Family Noctuidae.
When the moth is fresh, the forewings of
Coenophila subrosea have a beautiful rosy sheen which fades after a time in dead specimens. Weaver discovered this moth which was new to science at Yaxley Fen, Huntingdonshire in July 1828, during a thirteen week insect hunting sojourn in the fens. He found the moth visiting the tall purple flower spikes of the Teasel (
Dipsacus fullonum). In the Dale collection there are two female specimens of
C. subrosea that are labelled R. Weaver 1846. Walker (1909) observed that the contemporary labels on those two specimens if any, have been replaced by the hand written labels of Charles William Dale. Unfortunately C.W. Dale was a much less meticulously worker than his father and he is known from information in his father's diaries and elsewhere, to have added the wrong date to some of the specimens in the Dale collection. Weaver (1847) stated that he had only collected this species in 1828 and the two specimens in the Dale collection are almost certainly from his original collections at Yaxley Fen that were purchased by J.C. Dale.
This species was thought to be extinct in Britain when its fenland localities were destroyed, however, over a century later
C. subrosea was discovered in a bog in North Wales in 1965 and in 2005 in marshes in Cumbria in Northern England. Abroad, this species has a wide distribution across Europe and Asia to Japan.
Below.
C. subrosea. Whittlesea Mere. Ex coll R. Weaver. Dale coll, OUMNH.
Speckled Beauty, Fagivorina arenaria Hufnagel, 1767. Geometridae.
This species had a highly restricted distribution in Britain, being found in a few woodlands in Sussex and in the New Forest.
Fagivorina arenaria was discovered in the New Forest by James Charles Dale on June 2, 1823 and he took it their again in 1824. Weaver was the second entomologist to capture this pretty moth, taking a specimen in the forest in June 1825, which survives in the Dale collection. The usual method of obtaining specimens of this species was to search the oak trees when it was at rest during the daytime, although the moth was almost impossible to detect because of its cryptic colouring, it could be disturbed by raking them with a stick. The larvae were never discovered in Britain but in Europe the larva feed on lichens on oak trees. Always rare and local this species was last seen in Britain in the New Forest in 1872 and it is said a worn specimen that was taken in 1898 was observed in the collection of a New Forest Keeper. It is found in most of Central Europe to the Balkan Peninsula, Ukraine and as far south as Sicily and in the north to Sweden and Norway. The reasons for its extinction in Britain are unknown.
Below.
Fagivorina arenaria. New Forest, June 1825, Weaver. Dale coll, OUMNH.
New Forest Cicada, Cicadetta montana Scopoli, 1772. Family Cicadidae order Hemiptera.
This insect was discovered by the London weaver Daniel Bydder in the New Forest in 1812 and it was not until 1824 that it was collected again there by Weaver who it seems had a monopoly on this rare species, taking it again in that locality in 1825, 1826, 1828, & 1829. This species was occasionally taken on the wing, when its flight was similar to that of an erratic bumble bee, or specimens were beaten from thorn bushes or found at rest.
C. montana could command a very high price and Weaver could get as much as 10 pounds for a single specimen (worth approx £800 today). Although a few specimens of the Cicada were supposedly taken in a locality in Surrey, the New Forest was its main locality and Weaver took it again there in 1831 and in 1837, and ever the diligent collector in the latter year, he found seven imagoes that had just emerged from their pupae cases resting on ferns, his last recorded captures. The last confirmed sighting of this species was in the New Forest in 1993 and all recent attempts including those recently made by modern technology to listen for the low tone of singing males have failed to find it and it is now thought to have become extinct. It is regarded as endangered over large parts of Europe, and has vanished from several areas in Western Europe.
Cicadetta montana. Brockenhurst, New Forest. Probably from Weaver. Dale coll, OUMNH.
Silver Barred, Deltote bankiana Fabricius, 1775. Family Noctuidae » Eustrotiinae.
In 1840, Weaver set out on his first collecting expedition to Ireland. Weaver wrote to J.C. Dale from Worcester in 1841.
"Sir it is some years since I informed you of my doings in Natural History. In the month of May 1840 I was in Ireland, that journey proved as unsuccessful as this last summer. I only have taken one insect of any note in Ireland, that was Erastria Bankiana. I have taken them on the bog, which was extremely unpleasant travelling owing to the wet underfoot, and the distance I had to go every day after them, it was in the neighbourhood of Killarney, the weather was wet, cold and windy, very unfortunate for me. I was at Dingle, and the west coast of Ireland but I had taken nothing there. I went by way of Liverpool, Dublin, Limrick, Dingle, then back through Killarney, Cork to Bristol, to Birmingham."
In Britain
Deltote bankiana is a rare moth, being confined to a few sites in the fens of Cambridgeshire and to a coastal marsh in Kent. In Ireland it is found in the bogs of Cork and Kerry. The larvae feed on grasses.
Deltote bankiana. Killarney, Weaver. Dale coll, OUMNH.
Marsh Oblique-barred, Hypenodes humidalis Doubleday, 1850. Erebidae.
In spite of his earlier misgivings regarding Ireland, Weaver returned to collect there in 1848 and found a species new to science in the bogs of Killarney, the rather drab
Hypenodes humidalis. In 1850 the moth was discovered in Delamare Forest in Cheshire and is now known to have scattered distribution, mainly in western Britain where it is found in marshes and on wet heaths and moorland. The larvae have yet to be found in Britain.
Hypenodes humidalis. Dale coll, OUMNH.
Acanthopsyche atra Linnaeus, 1767. Psychinae.
Weaver found the larva of a new British moth of the family Psychidae in the New Forest in the summer of 1848 that Edward Newman described as in the
Zoologist (1850) as
Pysche fenella. The male specimen that Weaver bred from his larva was in the collection of Henry Doubleday. The females of this species are wingless and resemble the larva of the flies of the family Brachycera. Later when Weaver bred other specimens J.F. Stephens determined them as the
Sterrhopteryx opacella Herrich-Schäffer 1846 a junior synonym of
Acanthopsyche atra Linnaeus, 1767. In Britain this is a rare species of moorland and heathland where the foodplant is heather and grasses. The moths from the family Psychidae are also known as bagworms, due to the specific case-making habits of larva that they adorn with plant matter, these are certainly are among the strangest moths.
Acanthopsyche atra male. New Forest. Dale coll, OUMNH.
Weaver's Wave, Idaea contiguaria britanniae Muller 1936. Geometridae.
While Weaver was exploring the mountains of North Wales in 1855, he found a moth that was new to the Britain. Henry Doubleday figured and described it in the
Entomologist's Annual (1856) as
Dosithea eburnata Wocke 1850 a junior Synonym of
Idaea contiguaria Hubner, 1799. Dr Leopold Muller (1936) a German entomologist described the British insect as
Acidalia contiguaria britanniae but later in the same year as a distinct species
Acidalia britanniae. It is now recognized as a subspecies of
I. contiguaria as Muller first proposed.
Weaver in a letter dated August 21, 1856 told Dale that he had spent two months searching for
D. eburnata but only took 2 or 3 pairs that were in fine condition and several that were worn. In the U.K. this is regarded as a scarce species, being only found in the hillsides of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire in North-west Wales where it inhabits heather moorland and rests on rocks during the day. The larvae feed mostly on heather (
Calluna), but also have been found on crowberry (
Empetrum nigrum).
Idaea contiguaria britannicae. Dale coll, OUMNH.
Small Lappet, Phyllodesma ilicifolia Linnaeus, 1758. Lasiocampidae .
Phyllodesma ilicifolia is an extinct British moth that was always very local in Britain, being mainly found at Cannock Chase in the county of Staffordshire in the West Midlands of England. When Weaver went to search for
P. ilicifolia he stayed near the small market town of Rugeley at the eastern end of Cannock Chase. The moth was on the wing in April and May and the larvae fed on Bilberry,
Vaccinium myrtillus from June to mid-August.
By the Spring of 1856 Weaver's health was poor but he still spent five weeks on the chase looking for the adults of
P. ilicifolia but was unsuccessful. He was back at Rugeley in the summer, spending another five weeks searching for the larvae and was sure he had found some. In a letter dated August 21, 1856, he told J.C. Dale he thought he had found the correct larvae which had
" blue ground colour and were mottled with orange, with black markings and 20 large almost square white spots, a very pretty larva". Weaver sent a larva to Henry Doubleday to make certain of his identification. He had a wish to try Cannock Chase for this rare species for some years, the moth having been discovered there in 1851.
On March 27, 1857, Weaver wrote to Dale that he had bred 5
P. ilicifolia and that he reserved the finest pair for him, priced £2, these two specimens can still be seen in the Dale collection today. In a letter dated May 29, 1857 Weaver wrote to Dale from Rugeley that the weather had
"very cold with much rain but still I had good luck with P. ilicifolia or else my pockets would be empty." He had been staying at a farm at about a quarter of a mile from the spot where
P. ilicifolia occurred. He included some details of his stay here in his letter
" but sherry is the worse expense and a very high price, ruination to me, I cannot do with less than 3 or 4 bottles per week, the doctor will not allow me any other wines or spirits, for the last 16 or 17 years having had an inflammation of the liver, I also have bad asthma." Weaver had been out at night with his light and a female
P. ilicifolia to try to assemble the males but had no success. He mentioned in his letter that they fly by day and thought they should at night too, he said that the season was now over for them. Two female
P. ilicifolia had produced eggs in the spring which resulted in larvae which had died in the ensuring hot weather. Weaver returned to Rugeley in the June and July of 1857 and from the summer collections he managed to breed ten specimens from larvae that he collected. There are a number of Weaver's specimens of
P. ilicifolia in the British Museum of Natural History, having passed through collections and sales. The last authenticated captures of this species were made at the beginning of the 20th century.
Below. A pair of
P. ilicifolia that Richard Weaver bred from larvae collected on Cannock Chase in 1856. Dale coll, OUMNH.
References.
Morley, C. (1941)
The History of Cicadetta montana Scop in Britain, 1812-1940; The Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine, vol 921-922, pp 41-56.
Muller L. (1936)
Acidalia contiguaria Hb (Schlu) Mitteilungen der Münchner Entomologischen Gesellschaft, p 151.
Newman (1850)
Description of a second Lepidopterous Insect of the genus Psyche, recently discovered in Britain ; and proposed separation of a well known European species under a new generic name Zoologist, vol 8, xcix.
Walker. J.J. (1909)
Some Notes on the Lepidoptera of the Dale Collection of British Insects now in the Oxford university Museum. Entomologist's Monthly Magazine, vol XX, p 179.
Waring P. Townsend M. Lewington R. (2017)
Field Guide to the moths of Great Britain and Ireland. Bloomsbury Wildlife Guides.
Weaver R. (1825-1857). Letters to James Charles Dale.
Weaver R. ( 1847)
Note on Graphiphora subrosea of Stephens. The Zoologist : a monthly journal of natural history, Vol 5, p 1659.All the images in this article were taken by me at OUMNH Oxford University Museum of Natural History and remain their copyright. Many thanks to James Hogan for access to the Dale collection.