MONMOUTHSHIRE & BUTTERFLY GROUP

NEWSLETTER No 33 March 2006.

A monthly newsletter covering Gwent and Monmouthshire Vice County 35

Editor: Martin Anthoney

Small Ranunculus ( dysodea) - part one The Imago A small noctuid with a wingspan of 32-34mm. At rest it exhibits the dart shape typical of . A very fine speckling of orange and black scales is present on the fore wing. The flight season is June to early August. No variation is described in British literature but Koch describes a European variation (var. carduca) which lacks the orange/ yellow on the forewing. Should this variation occur in Britain it may cause confusion with Broad-barred White (Hecatera bicolorata), the only other representative of the small Hecatera in Britain. Heath and Emmet state that variation is slight. The species is described as Eurasiatic with a distribution biased towards the south. It is found in the Iberian peninsula, Belgium, France the south of Holland and Germany. It has not thus far been found in the Scandinavian countries (but see historical section).

The Larva Stokoe notes two variations. The first described as“pale reddish-brown becoming a dusky tint on the front rings with three faint blackish lines and two rows of spots on the back. Spiracles black, set in a blackish line, head pale brown and glossy”. The second form is “some shade of yellowish to olive green”. Porter gives similar descriptions. The larvae of this univoltine species are to be found on the foodplant during July and August. Cautionary note: If you intend searching for the larvae on Prickly Lettuce, I would strongly recommend that you take some “wet wipes”, or similar, with you. The plant exudes a sticky, white, latex which sticks to your fingers. This combines with a soot-like coating on the leaves and gets on to your pen, notebook or camera.

Above: Small Ranunculus Right: Roger & Julia James looking for larvae on Prickly Lettuce. How many can you spot?

1 The Pupa Stated to be reddish brown and slender. The pupa overwinters just below the surface of the ground but Koch states that the overwintering may last two years in central .

Larval Foodplants All the British literature I have seen agrees that the larval foodplants are the flowers and seedheads of lettuce () species including cultivars. Heath and Emmet give the foodplants as Prickly Lettuce (Lactuca serriola), Great Lettuce (L. virosa) and cultivars (L. sativa), Smooth Hawksbeard (Crepis capillaris) and Sow Thistles (Sonchus spp). Waring and Townsend give only Prickly and Great Lettuce but note that in the 19th century it was recorded in great numbers on cultivated lettuce. Skinner mentions only the flowers and seeds of various wild and cultivated lettuce, which is echoed in Porter. The only foodplant on which we have found the larvae in Newport is Prickly Lettuce although we have searched the other plants mentioned. Prickly Lettuce is a non-native species recorded for the first time in Britain in 1632 and in Gwent in 1973. Its spread northward and westward from south-east England is thought to be by colonising disturbed ground resulting from road building in the 20th century. It is an annual or biennial of disturbed and waste ground. My own observation in Newport is that Prickly Lettuce tends to be a pioneer species which seems to disappear from sites where vigorous plant succession is in progress. The best ruderal site in Newport was the Old Town Dock, now in the process of development. Despite the fact that Prickly Lettuce was found growing within 100 metres of this site I never discovered it there despite exhaustive searches. Some of the favoured sites in Newport are along the line of chain-link fences, recently disturbed ground (e.g. the bund alongside the Southern Distributor Road), loose gravel paths, railway lines and growing out of walls (e.g. Newport Station). The distribution of the larval foodplant determines the distribution of the species. This presents a problem, as the only areas that the foodplant grows are on waste and disturbed ground. At present, with much demolition and rebuilding along the Usk corridor, ideal conditions may be produced but monitoring such sites can prove difficult for health and safety reasons. Newport City Council has negotiated with the contractors to leave part of the Southern Distributor Road verges where the larval foodplant occurs as unimproved ruderal. The only management process would be an annual mow and removal of the resulting cuttings. This does not, however, address the problem of succession and more intensive ground cover which seems to inhibit seed-set of Prickly Lettuce. I have to conclude that a detailed management plan for the conservation of the Small Ranunculus would be difficult to produce and implement. The continuing presence of the moth in Newport may be mainly dependant on luck and chance. As with some other there is a slight difference in larval foodplants utilised on the Continent. In the small number of German textbooks I have at my disposal Aquilegia and Artemesia are listed in addition to those mentioned previously. A recent publication by Crafer gives lists of larvae to be found on various foodplants. He lists eleven species on Lactuca agg., four on Hawksbeard but only one, Small Ranunculus, on Prickly Lettuce. It would therefore seem that if you find moth larvae feeding on the flowers and seeds of Prickly Lettuce it is very likely to be this species.

References Crafer, T. 2005 Foodplant List for the Caterpillars of Britain's Butterflies and Larger . Atropos Heath, J. & Emmet, M. 1979 The Moths and Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland. Vol. 9. Curwen Koch, M. 1984 (2nd Ed) Wir bestimmen Schmetterlinge. Neumann-Verlag. Leipzig, Radebeul. Leverton, R. 2001 Enjoying Moths. Poyser Natural History Porter, J., 1997. The Colour Identification Guide to Caterpillars of the British Isles. Viking. Skinner, B., 1984. Colour Identification Guide to Moths of the British Isles. Viking Stokoe, W.J., 1958 The Caterpillars of British Moths Warne Wayside & Woodland Series Waring, P. and Townsend, M. 2003 Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland British Wildlife Publishing

Part two will follow in next month’s newsletter. Roger James

2 William Rait – Smith

When I moved to Risca, just north of Newport, in 1977 and started exploring the lepidoptera of the western valleys of Gwent, I was struck by how few previous records existed: those I could find were mostly attributable to “Rait-Smith, Abertillery, 1912”. I often wondered who Rait-Smith was, what was his background? What was it like recording lepidoptera in the Gwent valleys a hundred years ago? This article represents an attempt to satisfy my curiosity.

Neil Horton, in his 1994 book Monmouthshire Lepidoptera, stated “W. Rait-Smith, a Kentish man and noted lepidopterist, was a mining surveyor who between 1905 and 1914 worked at Abertillery in north-west Monmouthshire”

In fact, William Rait-Smith was born on August 19, 1875, in Hong Kong, son of the founder of the Hong Kong Daily Press. He was educated at Appleby School and Doctor Watson's College, Edinburgh, before qualifying as an architect. He was indeed employed for nine years as a mining surveyor in Abertillery, living at Nenadd House, Abertillery, though he frequently visited his family home at Bickley, Kent and his recording was split between the two areas. During this nine-year period he published several articles in the Entomologists’ Record on the butterflies and moths of the Abertillery district. In 1912 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society.

Eventually, sometime during the period of World War One, the family moved to Redhill, Surrey, where Rait-Smith continued his entomology. In 1933 he jointly published an important paper in the Transactions of the Royal Entomological Society on the hymenopterous parasites of British Lepidoptera and in 1936 was a founder member of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History. In 1939 he caught the first authentic British specimen of Toadflax Brocade (Calophasia lunula), now a well- established colonist. Despite a severe leg injury when well over 70, he continued collecting into his late seventies. He died on 19th December 1958, aged 83. He was survived by his wife and elder son, a younger son and daughter having died previously.

Described as a man of few words, after he left Abertillery Rait-Smith wrote very little on his recording activities, being remembered instead for meticulous articles summarising the sales of lepidoptera specimens! We may have had more information about his recording work in north-west Gwent but for an incident reported in one of his articles: “…on August 15th 1911 I had a Gladstone bag, containing the whole of my entomological outfit and my note books, with all my notes for the last seven years, stolen at Paddington whilst on my way to Kent for my summer holidays. I can only hope the thief found my notes of sufficient interest to compensate him for the various articles of clothing which he no doubt expected to get”.

He was an avid collector of moths and (particularly) butterflies, on a scale which was quite common then but, mercifully, has now died out. As an example, of 1914 he wrote: “We returned to Abertillery on Aug 15th [after two weeks holiday in Hampshire], bringing home about 600 which kept me busy setting for a week or two”. His collection, left to the British Museum, comprised over 47,000 pinned specimens. Some species, particularly the rarer blue butterflies, were represented by many hundreds of specimens showing only slight variations in markings.

3 Rait-Smith recorded 29 species of butterfly in the Abertillery district including six species of fritillary. His efforts made a big difference to, in his own words, “…..the Western Valleys of Monmouthshire, which are practically terra incognita entomologically”. Some of his observations we can only dream about today; for example “On April 24th 1912, in a small secluded valley about 3 miles from Abertillery I found Callophrys rubi [Green Hairstreak] out in extraordinary numbers…… I could have taken two or three hundred, with very little trouble, if necessary but was content with 75 specimens” or “Argynnis adippe [High Brown Fritillary] can be found commonly at Crumlin, Llanhilleth and Mynyddislwyn, with only singletons elsewhere” or “On one hillside Parasemia plantaginis [Wood Tiger] was very common, dashing madly about in the hot sunshine. This is an exceedingly difficult to take on the wing in such situations; about 4pm, however, they begin to settle down for the night and the flight is not nearly so rapid, so a good series was taken with comparatively little trouble”.

The last paragraph demonstrates that he was not just a collector but a very perceptive observer of insect behaviour. Some comments still ring true today and show that pessimism for the future is not confined to modern lepidopterists: “In a small marshy field near Pont-llan-fraith Melitaea aurinia [Marsh Fritillary] still occurs [1911], but in sadly diminished numbers. I am afraid it will not be long before this local species is no longer found here. It occurred in abundance up till 1907, when I took a good series, but has rapidly diminished in numbers since. I cannot account for this”. Almost certainly, the site referred to is now Penllwyn Grasslands SSSI. The good news is that Marsh Fritillary was found on this site up until at least 1997, the bad news is that it has not been seen since and Rait-Smith’s fears for the species were eventually fulfilled. Rait-Smith also found Narrow-bordered Bee Hawk and Grizzled Skipper on this site, neither of which has been found there in modern times.

It is not all bad news: amongst a list for which Rait-Smith stated “A careful search was made for the following species, but without success” were Comma, Speckled Wood and Marbled White, all regarded as common insects in Gwent today.

To finish with a puzzle: there were no MV or actinic light traps available to Rait-Smith, and to record moths he spent considerable time searching for resting adults with a lantern, sugaring, beating for larvae by day and at night with a lantern, netting specimens both by day and at dusk and simple observation. He seems to have recorded almost all the moorland macro moths found in the Abertillery district today, and a good few no longer present, yet he did not come across the Silurian, perhaps the most famous moth of the Abertillery district: did he miss it, was it present……………………..? Thanks are due to the Entomology Section at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, for allowing me to use their library.

References: C.G. de Worms The Entomologist 1959 pp65-68 Obituary of W. Rait-Smith Michael Salmon The Aurelian Legacy 2000 University of California Press G. A. Neil Horton Monmouthshire Lepidoptera 1994 Comma International Biological Systems. W. Rait-Smith Entomologist’s Record 1906 p80 Early Winter Lepidoptera W. Rait-Smith Entomologist’s Record 1906 pp308-311 The Butterflies of Abertillery W. Rait-Smith Entomologist’s Record 1912 pp133-138, 162-168 Season of 1911 in Abertillery W. Rait-Smith Entomologist’s Record 1915 pp168-173 Notes on Collecting in 1914. C. Morley & W. Rait-Smith Trans. Royal Ent. Soc. 1933 pp133-183 The hymenopterous parasites of British Lepidoptera.

Martin Anthoney

4 Watch Your Trap! Before I operated my second trap, which I site at the bottom of my garden, I decided to clean it up and check the electrics. Every year I unscrew the bulb and clean the lampholder where small insects accumulate and can cause an electrical short. The trap is a modified “Batty Trap” with a larger catch receptacle fitted. To my horror, as I dissembled it the trap began to disintegrate. The plastic had become very brittle and cracked very easily so I am now faced with rebuilding the trap when I can find a suitable storage box. I can only conclude that the plastic has been affected by constant exposure to UV light. Perhaps the editor can throw some light on the subject (sorry!). The Robinson trap which I operate at the top of the garden seems totally unaffected but if you operate any other types which are plastic-based check them out before you use them. Roger James [Editor’s illumination: All plastics are subject to “weathering” to a greater or lesser extent, losing their plasticity as a result. The four main problems, in decreasing order of damage, are due to UV light (causing a reaction with atmospheric oxygen), thermal cycling (repeated heating and cooling), moisture and wind. For outdoor use, plastics should be chosen which show the greatest resistance to weathering and which are formulated to contain chemical retardants that slow down reactions.]

Recent Highlights & First Records

13th Dec 2005 Remarkably late record of a perfect Speckled Wood flying around the rear entrance to Caerleon Comprehensive School. Bob Roome

The cold, cloudy weather and easterly winds have made this a very late season. Amongst the few records received are

th 28 Feb 2006 Twenty-plume Moth (Alucita hexadactyla) to light at Chepstow. Shelley Cross My pet Red Admiral, still present in my Risca garden after more than a week, is feeding on winter heather, and flying in the snow. Martin Anthoney

9th March Dotted Border to light at Risca. Martin Anthoney (2005 first date 5th Feb)

10th March Hebrew Character to light at Summerhill Ave, Newport Roger James (2005 first date 2nd Feb)

25th March Common Quaker, Oak Beauty to light at Summerhill Ave, Newport (2005 first dates 30th Jan and 6th Feb respectively) Roger James

26th March Small Quaker to light at Summerhill Ave, Newport (2005 first date 12th March) Roger James

27th March Yellow Horned, Early Grey and Twin-spotted Quaker to light at Risca. (2005 first dates 9th March, 30th Jan and 16th March respectively) Martin Anthoney

29th March Early Thorn to light at Risca (2005 first date 22nd March). Martin Anthoney

30th March Brimstone butterfly at Summerhill Ave, Newport Roger James Yellow Horned

5 Forthcoming Events Wednesday 12th April Silurian Larval Search – to build on last year’s success. Start: 19:30pm. Meet Roseheyworth Business Park, Unit 12. (This is one mile north of Abertillery at grid ref. SO205057;on the section of the A467 between the Abertillery traffic lights and the Blaina roundabout, take the turn off signposted Bournville, when the Business Park is immediately on your right). From there we will go up the mountain road in as few vehicles as possible. We will probably finish at 23:00pm, depending on how cold it is. Anyone attending will need warm and waterproof clothing, gloves and hat; sturdy boots; a torch and a flask of hot drink for afterwards. We’ll bring the biscuits! Contact Russel Hobson (0870 7706153) or Martin Anthoney if you intend coming.

Saturday 27th May Butterfly Conservation Day on Gower Commons. Visit to one or more of the Gower Commons, where marsh fritillary, small pearl-bordered fritillary, green hairstreak and narrow bordered bee hawk moth are target species. We hope to have a combined indoor talk/field event. Further details in next newsletter.

Friday 22nd Sept Subject to confirmation, Paul Waring will lead another attempt to find out more about ecology of the larvae of the Silurian moth. Afternoon / evening. More details to follow.

Saturday 14th Oct A date for your diary. This will be the annual Butterfly Conservation day of talks etc. at WTSWW visitors’ centre, Tondu.

MMBG – Contact Names and Addresses. Secretary: Kevin Dupé Chairman: Roger James 44 Gaer Park Lane 14 Summerhill Avenue Newport Newport NP20 3NE NP19 8FP

Phone 01633 216599 Phone 01633 215627 e-mail [email protected] e-mail [email protected]

Treasurer: Sheila Dupe 18 Haisbro Avenue Newport NP19 7HY Phone 01633 256475

Newsletter Editor & Recorder for Recorder for Micro Moths Butterflies & Macro Moths Martin Anthoney Sam Bosanquet 23 Malvern Close Dingestow Court Risca Monmouth Newport Monmouthshire NP11 6QY NP25 4DY Phone 01633 612272 Phone 01646 690102 e-mail [email protected] e-mail [email protected]

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