19 DECEMBER 1992, Page 58

Mothballs

Sir: As the man who won a round of applause for rescuing the Red Underwing moth in my local Chinese restaurant, I was very upset to read, in Isabel Wolff's 'Fifty years of rodenticide' (3 October), of the Pheromone Funnel Trap for moths. 'They fly in thinking there's a Miss Moth in there and then, bang, they get hit with a whiff of naphtha.' Why should the pest men want to kill any moth but the clothes moth? The beautiful Tiger Moth, the Hummingbird Hawkmoth, the Oak Eggar and the Cinnabar Moth used to be common in Eng- land. Now you hardly ever see them (even in Chinese restaurants). They do no harm — even to pest controllers — and should be encouraged as much as butterflies.

Hew Stevenson

42 Canonbury Square, London NI