History of butterfly names

[Dave McCormick]

I am currently writing a PDF file on the history of UK butterflies and their names and wondered if anyone had any useful information I could use. I have a list of names and wondered if anyone had any information on them, what the butterfly was that was given these names, why the names were given etc...?

Old butterfly names I have a list of:

The streakt Golden Hogg (1704) Male
The Spotless Hogg (1704) Female
The chequer-like Hogg (1704) Male
The Chequered Hogg (1704) Female
The Streakt cloudy Hog (1717) Male
The Cloudy Hog (1717) Female

Handleys Brown Butterfly (1704)
Handleys Brown Hog Butterfly (1706)
Handleys Small Brown Butterfly (1717)

Are these the Marsh Fritillary early names? (Names in bold)

Our brown Marsh Fratillary (1699,1704)
Small-Spotted brown Marsh Fritillary (1717)
Mr Dandridge's March Fritillary (1704, 1717)

Mr Ray's Alpine Butterfly (Guessing either the Apollo or Small Apollo since they are on list of known British Butterflies from past)

The Royal William (1699) - The Swallowtail?

Willow Butterfly
Elm Tortoiseshell
Nettle Tortoiseshell
Scarlet Admirable (Red Admiral?)
White Admirable
Thistle Butterfly (Painted Lady?)
Silver Streak Fritillary
Violet Silver Spotted Fritillary

Wood Argus
Brown Argus
Orange Argus
Clouded Argus
Small Argus
Manchester Argus

Scarce Spotted Skipper
August Skipper
Brown Blue

Clouded Orange
Marbled Argus

there is more names that this I think

[Charles Nicol]

Hi Dave

You might like to look at this thread from another place:

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=42678

Charles

[Mikhail]

This is a huge subject Dave. I have been able to glean some of the old names from Butterflies by E.B.Ford (the first New Naturalist book) and from A Moth Hunter's Gossip by P.B.M.Allan.
The Hoggs were skippers. The Spotless Hogg was apparently the Small Skipper and the Cloudy Hogg the Large Skipper. The Marsh Frit. was known as Dandridge's Black Fritillary. Handley's Small Brown butterfly was the Dingy Skipper. The Royal William was Petiver's name for the Swallowtail. Some of his other names were The Half-Mourner for the Marbled White and The Greenish Marbled Half-Mourner for the Bath White. The Pale Comma was his name for the hutchinsoni form of the Comma. It is interesting that Petiver used the names Admiral and White Admiral: it was only later authors such as Wilkes and Moses Harris who used the name Admirable. The Manchester Argus was the Large Heath, that was once common on the mosses thereabouts, and the Orange Argus was the Large Copper. Almost any butterfly with ocelli was liable to be called an argus.
I think you will have to do quite a bit of research on this topic. The above is just a start.

Misha

[Dave McCormick]

HI, Thanks for help, I can tell this might be a lengthy project and may take some research. Thought the hoggs were skippers. I'll do one species at a time and see what I come up with

[Dave McCormick]

I am working on some of the species I know about so far. Anyone know when the Small Tortoiseshell was named the "Nettle Butterfly"? It was called the lesser (Common) Tortoise-shell Butterfly (1699) by James Petiver.

[Matsukaze]

There is a pretty comprehensive listing of historic names for British butterflies in Michael Salmon's The Aurelian Legacy.

[Dave McCormick]

cheers, I might just see if there is a copy about.

[Padfield]

You can also find most of the answers in Heath (The Moths and Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland Volume 7 Part 1), which has a section at the end of each species entry on the history of the vernacular names. Some of them are quite surprising. 'Our marsh fritillary', for example, was the grizzled skipper, if I remember correctly (but I don't have my copy with me here in CH)!

Guy

[Dave McCormick]

Hi guy,

Just realised I have that book somewhere, might be a good place to start anyway.