by Waring, Townsend and Lewington. 
Published by British Wildlife, 2003.
£29.95. 432 pp. over 880 species covered, 74 main colour plates with over 1600 colour illustrations in all.
Paperback ISBN 0-9531399-2-1

This is a new field identification guide covering the larger British moths that may be of particular interest to the more casual or beginner moth recorder. Since the mid-1980’s the standard field guide to moths has been Bernard Skinner’s Colour Identification Guide to the Moths of the British Isles. One of the criticisms that some moth recorders have made about Skinner is that the plates show cabinet specimens in pinned out positions and comparing a live moth in the hand with a picture  of  a  pinned  dead  one  requires  some  mental  juggling.  This  new  moth identification guide seeks to remedy this problem by showing moths in their normal resting postures. The species covered include all the larger moths, the ones that most beginners start with, as well as some very recent additions to the British list. The colour illustrations, essential for a good moth guide, have all been done by Richard Lewington and are comparable to examples of his work in other natural history guides. There is a slight variation in the quality - some of the pictures capture the appearance of the moth exceptionally well while others seem a bit flat or conversely too colourful or well marked compared with the appearance of the moth in the field. The colour plates are spaced in five groups through the book and I find it hard to understand why this was done as having to flick between different groups of plates does not make finding the picture of the moth any easier. The choice of glossy paper for the plates is not ideal given that this might cause slight glare under torchlight or the main moth lights.

The book starts with short sections covering subjects on how to identify moths using the book, moth anatomy, the lifecycle of moths, common micro-moths confused with larger moths, field techniques for finding moths and moth conservation. The main bulk of the book (394 pages) is taken up with the species accounts and this section I found the most useful and interesting. Each species account is split into the usual sections for moth guides including field characteristics, similar species, flight season, lifecycle, larval food plants, habitat, status and distribution. The text has been written in an easy to read style avoiding the normal scientific terminology that may deter beginners. The sections on field characteristics and similar species contain useful features that will help confirm a tentative identification based on looking at the plates, or help differentiate moths of a similar appearance. The status and distribution sections appear to be more up to date than those in Skinner (not too surprisingly) and give a rough indication of where each species is likely to be encountered in Britain. However, I have already noticed that there are some mistakes relating to the status of certain species in Suffolk. Other mistakes that have already been spotted in the book are being published in the British Wildlife magazine.

This book seems to have had a rather mixed reception in the moth recording community: some people enthuse about it while others give rather tepid responses. My personal view is that it is a good book and well worth having but a bit more thought and effort could have made it so much better. A beginner with a moth in hand receives little help from the book to narrow down the likely set of plates that need to be checked. As the main selling point of the book seems to be the natural resting posture illustrations, little is made of differentiating the main groups of moths using their resting posture; this would have enabled narrowing down the set of plates to be searched quite quickly. There are surprisingly few diagrams or figures of the wings or body showing diagnostic features for species, or features to help differentiating between similar species. The field characteristics section contains descriptions of these features but a picture is so much easier to understand. This is rather a major flaw in my view.Identification guides should try to make the process of determination as easy and error-free as possible. Other minor grumbles include poor cross-referencing between plate figures and species accounts, having the scientific name index at the back rather than the English name index, no generally available hard back edition and a new set of terms to describe the anatomy of moths.

As a field guide it is quite a nice size for slipping into a coat pocket but as a paperback I suspect it will not last long if it gets damp or wet. One wonders why a hardback version is not generally available as this would be much more likely to stand up to the rigours of field use. I am sure that this book will prove very popular on the basis of the illustrations and easy-to-read text. It is a book I would recommend for beginners or more casual observers to begin moth identifications and for the more experienced recorders there is still plenty of interest to be found within the book. However, as the guide I use for identifying in the field it will not be replacing the copy of Skinner that is in my field bag.

Tony Prichard, Moths Recorder

© 2004   Suffolk Naturalists' Society