Madam, - Your edition of June 23rd carried a report on the declining number of moths in Britain.
In Ireland, too, this decline over the past few years has become a collapse. Anyone can confirm the phenomenon by just considering when they last had to clean dead moths off the car headlights after an evening journey.
Recent correspondence in Atropos, the butterfly, moth and dragonfly magazine, postulated that a main cause of this decline is "light pollution" - our fondness for intrusive floodlighting and generally excessive lighting results in the unfortunate moths aimlessly circling lamps when they should be reproducing.
For those interested in recording the numbers of moths there is now a specifically Irish system at www.mothsireland.com. - Yours, etc,
MG SALTER,
Carrigoona,
Kilmacanogue,
Co Wicklow.