WHAT are pretty chalk carpet, red-necked footman, lime-speck pug and scarce merveille du jour? Rare orchids? No, these romantic names belong to insects, most of which appear in inglorious combinations of dismal browns. What is more, most are creatures of the night, insects for which a jaunty appearance or romantic epithet is inconsequential. They are, of course, moths.

According to the writer and naturalist Peter Marren, who is interested in the origins of insect names, before the 17th century no one distinguished one moth from another.

“The oldest names date back to the early 17th century, and may well be folk names,” says Marren. “Thomas Mouffet, the 16th-century naturalist, divided caterpillars into ‘oubutts’, meaning hairy ones, a word that might have inspired Tolkien’s hobbits, and smooth ‘palmerworms’. His names include death’s head moth and cinnabar moth, still used today.”

Others, some quite beautiful, have not survived. Another naturalist, James Petiver, listed many moth names in 1695, including the Hampstead small leopard, Glanvile’s orange girdled moth and Tilman Bobart’s straw moth, the last two named after collectors who brought specimens to him.

But most of today’s moth names, says Marren, were invented by a group of artists, poets, craftsmen and naturalists who got together around 1730 and called themselves the Society of Aurelians. Several of the leading Aurelians were connected to the silk industry.

“These men of cultivated, aesthetic tastes named their charges after everyday 18th-century objects,” says Marren. “Quakers and rustics in their subfusc attire; satins, silks and other fine fabrics; the Gothic arches of church naves; or the colours worn by foresters.”

For those few in Georgian society who could afford them, heavily patterned brocades, scallop-design carpets, footmen to see to every need, and vases of blossom were much prized. So it is that the Aurelians alighted upon names such as scalloped hazel, bird-cherry ermine, peach blossom, and lime-speck pug — the flat-snouted pug was a popular dog of the time.

The lackey moth, small and golden brown, is named after the strips of colours along its caterpillar’s back that resemble livery lace then worn by servants. The argent and sable, a black-and-white moth, and the reddish-cream herald moth both hark back to splendid heraldic costumes.

Moths with “brocade” in their names have wings with raised, slightly metallic patterns. “Darts” have a distinctive black streak. “Pinions” have notched markings like the cogs of mill gears. The grainy wings of “wainscots” resemble wooden panelling. And “footman” moths wrap their wings close about their bodies, giving a stiff appearance.

But the mocha, Marren says, is nothing to do with coffee. The wings of this small, yellowish moth are marked with moss-like veins, like those in the mocha stone, the old-fashioned name for moss agate.

Then there is the chimney sweeper (black) and the white satin or the green oak tortrix, a delicate green and brown moth, the caterpillars of which live in rolled-up oak leaves. The Mother Shipton moth is more straightforward. It appears to have the profile of the witch on its wings.

There are pitfalls as well. Marren initially connected the name of the common lutestring with the lute, which was popular in Georgian times.

“But it has nothing to do with lutes. In the 18th century, lutestring was a glossy silk fabric, the word derived from the French lustrine (from lustre). Hence it belongs to the same stable as satin and brocade,” Marren says.

But why go for such imaginative names at all? Marren believes part of the attraction of these insects for the Aurelians was their miraculous transformation from “lowly caterpillars” to “angelic fliers”, a comparison one of them made with the Resurrection.

Not all of the Aurelians’ names have survived, though. The old gentlewoman is now the prosaic cabbage moth, and the lovely maid of honour is showing her age. She is now the blotched emerald.

• This evening is National Moth Night 2003, a project intended to raise awareness of moths and encourage amateur observers to record their sighting. Prizes for sightings of rarities. Information: www.nationalmothnight.info

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