Lord Walsingham and the Manchester Moth

An interaction is described between three nineteenth century naturalists of different background and character. They were the sixth Baron Walsingham, John Hartley Durrant and Robert Cribb, the first two of them noted taxonomists and the third an artisan collector. Their activities led to the acquisition by the Manchester Museum of a collection of over two thousand specimens of micro-Lepidoptera in exchange for a single individual of the Manchester Moth Euclemensia woodiella , found only once in Britain in 1829. The donation covered about 80 per cent of the species known at the time in the groups represented. The origin of the Manchester Moth is considered and the composition of the Museum's comprehensive collection of British micro-Lepidoptera is briefly outlined.