A Country Diary: Baguette Processionary larvae
Taking the air while perambulating to one's place of employment can be a time for quiet reflective contemplation as well as a valuable opportunity for exercise in our hectic modern world. The uplands of the city of Sheffield provide ample opportunity for stretching the calf muscles and considering the damage done to the environment by the noxious output of the industrial revolution.
How wonderful to hear of a return of some, formerly considered to be extinct to the area, species of moth. The Noctilinear Fritillary, the Cumberland Pentax, and the Hawksmoor Baguette Processionary, have all been remarked to have made a resurgence in recent time.
How delightful then to chance upon the aforementioned Hawksmoor Baguette Processionary in its larval stage on a Crookes wall. The larvae has entered the pupae state from which it gains the nominative description, albeit in the form of a rather weathered baguette.
The Baguette pupae stage as spotted in Crookes
The Baguette spends the Winter months metamorphosing into a moth the length of a deflated rugby ball with the weight of a cricket stump. These once commonplace creatures were known to flap into the faces of early morning workers like great aunts from the novels of P.G.Wodehouse. Sometimes knocking proletarians off their feet in surprise. Thomas Carlyle refers to one such incident in an essay where he reports that a woman file cutter carrying her sack of blanks across town was startled into a ditch, causing the loss of earnings for the entire week.
I don't expect any such 'startling' incident to become commonplace anytime soon. The return of these magnificent drab creatures is something to be celebrated however minor the incursion.
Next week: Stuffling Chortleby takes a view on the Crumpsall Downs.
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