Another week, another theme, and another tie-in with philately, to mark the latest Royal Mail Commemorative stamps, to be released on the 9th of July - though they have already been unveiled. Unusually this time there are five second class stamps (the emperor moth, the puss moth, the broad-bordered bee hawk moth, the dark bordered beauty moth and the December moth) and five first class stamps (the dark crimson underwing, the scarce crimson and gold, the swallow tailed moth, the hedge beauty, and the buff-tip).
As always we started with some cunning clues, which were all to moths that do not appear on the stamps.
Our first clue card, on Saturday the 4th of July showed the Stade de France, the site of a notable moth mobbing during Euro 2016. The marauding moths were a continental species but one which is becoming a more common visitor to Britain as our climate changes, and, who knows, may one day decide to live here permanently
Our second clue, on Sunday the 5th of June, was to the name of a moth, one of the largest in the world, called the Atlas Moth, whose wingspan can reach twelve inches, with a surface area of twenty five inches. It is generally regarded as the largest simply because its rivals are the White Witch Moth and the Attacus Caesar, which each have a larger span but a smaller surface area, and by the Hercules Moth which has a larger surface area but a smaller wingspan.
and lastly, on Monday the 6th of July we gave you a Tiger Moth, by Mr. Geoffrey de Havilland, a keen entomologist as well as an aircraft designer, who named a lot of his aeroplanes after moths, and other insects, and with good reasons - firstly he was a very keen entomologist, and secondly, he knew that though the butterfly wins the beauty contests, the moth is resilient and built for strength, as long as many other qualities that are to be valued in the construction of aeroplanes.
Now, as always, if anyone else would like to send us any information or scans from their collection which relates in any way to our theme of the week, please do - simply email us at webmaster@card-world.co.uk - and this is the same for any corrections, or for general cartophilic correspondence and chat.