Many bugs, especially insects, have English names, some of them recent, but others have been in use for generations. But in this age of standardised names do we still use local names? For example, woodlice have been given dozens of names from ‘ballyspider’ to ‘woozy pug’. Moths were known in parts of the country as ‘millers’, ‘buzzards’ or ‘pisgies’, dragonflies as ‘horse stingers’ or ‘devil’s darning needles’. Do children still coin names for bugs, and if so which ones?

Bug-lore: Butterflies tend to be named from colours (‘blues’, ‘whites’, and ‘browns’) but moths
from textures eg brocades, wainscots, satins and lutestrings (from lustrine, an old word for silk).

Large numbers of bugs are often referred to as swarms or, in the case of ants, armies. There are beds of clams or nests of hornets. Have you heard anyone refer to a loveliness of ladybirds, an intrusion of cockroaches, or a smack of jellyfish?  Can you add to the list?

Bug-lore: The oldest British insects were collected around 1690. They were pressed like flowers and glued to the pages of a book (which makes viewing them rather tricky).

Traditionally gardeners and bugs have been at loggerheads. But many gardens now welcome bugs, or at least some of them. You can buy nest boxes for mason bees or hibernating ladybirds, or food plants or nectar sources for butterflies and moths. Do you have novel or successful ways of attracting insects and other bugs to your garden, or alternatively, do you have clever ways of deterring unwanted species?

Bug-lore: In gardens earthworms are said to shift around 100 tonnes per hectare of soil every year.

More bug-lore: Over twenty years, Jennifer Owen found over 8,000 species of bugs in her “rather ordinary” garden in Leicester.

Anglers have devised wonderful names for bugs: olives and duns, spinners, nymphs and ‘spent gnats’. Are fishing flies based on actual insects, and does the choice depend on what species are on the wing? Is there a modern folk-lore of angling with flies? Do you have any buggy fishing stories?

Bug-lore: Charles Rothschild’s collection of fleas contains twelve dressed in tiny costumes, including a bride and groom.

Collecting and rearing insects, especially butterflies and moths, was a traditional British hobby. All sorts of techniques were developed to lure and catch them, from painting alcoholic treacle on tree-stumps to using a ‘beating tray’ to catch caterpillars falling from overhanging branches. Are exotic species bought at ‘bug fairs’ now more popular than native ones? Is field craft still a key part of our pursuit of insects?

Bug-lore: About a third of all known animals are insects. Britain has 6,000 kinds of beetles and 7,000 kinds of flies. “If you hate insects, you hate life” – Ken Thompson, zoologist.

Fancy a toasted leafcutter ant anyone? Most of us have eaten at least one insect product -honey (but what flowers make the best honey?). We may have eaten shellfish like prawns or mussels, but how many of us have tried a grasshopper or a garden snail?  Are there recipes for home-grown bugs? Hands up anyone who has eaten spiders or flying ants (said to taste of peanut butter, but remove the wings first).

Bug-lore: Dr Buckland, who lived near London Zoo and sampled every form of animal life he could lay his hands on said the worst thing he had ever eaten was a bluebottle fly. Not recommended.

English poetry and prose is full of insects and other bugs. Butterflies and moths feature in the works of Virginia Wolfe and Siegfried Sassoon, not to mention The Collector by John Fowles. Flies have a darker role, as in the horror story, The Fly. Literature about bugs tends to be scientific, but A Moth Hunters Gossip by P.B.M.Allen manages to be both scientific and very funny. Do you know of novels, poems or children’s stories featuring British bugs?  

“I hope that I shall never see/ A poem as ugly as a flea” – Anon.

Apothecaries once used bugs in all kinds of potions, while leeches were the standard way of reducing blood pressure. Do you know of any medicinal or homeopathic uses for wild British bugs?

Bug-lore: The first bug book was Thomas Moffet’s Theatre of Insects. Among other things, he told us that rotting carcasses bring forth bees (a belief surviving on tins of Golden Syrup) and that, if you suffer from asthma, a woodlice soused in wine will work wonders.

Bugs have inspired all sorts of toys and games from madly-spinning magnetic ladybirds to sophisticated, remote-controlled robo-bugs (not to mention gruesome fluffy toys based on bookworms and dust mites). Have you seen unusual toys and games obviously inspired by a British bug? Have you been entertained by a flea circus, or had a flutter at a crab race?

Bug-lore: Over a lifetime we unintentionally swallow “at least half a kilogram of insects”.

Ants are usually kept in soil between two panes of glass known as a formicarium. Caterpillars can be reared in all kinds of containers from empty ice-cream tubs to custom-built cages. Have you devised a bug palace? Do you know of a local leech-farm or wormery?

Bug-lore: One of our oldest bug names is the Painted Lady butterfly, named from its resemblance to the fake-tans and mascara of seventeenth century courtesans.

We all know about Miss Muffet and the spider, or the Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. The rhyme starting “Ladybird, ladybird, Fly away home/ Your house is on fire, your children are gone” supposedly referred to the practice of burning hop-vines after the harvest.  But where is our ‘Blue-tailed Fly’ or ‘Ugly Bug Ball’? Do you know of any contemporary rhymes or songs – rock, pop or classical - inspired by British bugs?

The 1970s sitcom, Butterflies, was disappointingly short on entomological content. Do you know of films or TV dramas in which bugs have played a role, even if only as a brief fly-on part? How about advertising?  Are there products linked to buzzing bees or the now nostalgic chirp of a cricket?

They say a sprig of broom is perfect for warding off angry wasps. They once thought sea anemones were baby fish. Some say a ladybird found in your house in winter will bring good luck (but will this survive the arrival of the American Harlequin Ladybird with its fondness for stored fruit?). At the time of the Battle of Britain the wisps of spider’s webs known as gossamer were thought to represent a sinister secret weapon. Do we still harbour beliefs and superstitions about bugs? And have we fashioned new ones for our times?

Britain has a tradition of beautifully-illustrated bug books going back three hundred years. We hear of bug-inspired designs in art nouveau, such as the Anderson collection, as well as walk-on parts for bugs in fantasy art, such as Richard Dadd’s. Have you seen interesting examples of art that say something about our feelings for particular bugs.

Don't forget to visit the Gallery.

Britain has dozens of bug-based societies, from the Amateur Entomological Society and Buglife, dedicated to the study and conservation of all invertebrates, to special interest groups like the Tarantula Society, whose members (it claims) wear leather and go around on motorbikes. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust has joined Britain’s volunteer army of bird recorders to find out what lives in our gardens. Do you have a local ‘bug-group’?

Bug-lore: The first British bug society was formed around 1730 and known as The Aurelians. Many were poets, artists or designers, inspired by the beauty and miraculous ‘transformations’ of the insect world.

We share our centrally-heated, well-hoovered homes with fewer bugs than our forebears. Some domestic species, like the cheese fly or the firebrat or the house cricket, have all but gone. Are cloths moths still a home pest? Is the knock of the death-watch beetle still a familiar sound? Are there some bugs that are welcome in the house - perhaps the daddy-long-legs spider which can make short work of gnats and window flies, not to mention other spiders?  

Bug-lore: National Insect Week 2007 is on 18-25 June with events across the UK. Expect lots of tips on how to make an ‘insect garden’ and where to spot a scarlet malachite beetle.

A hundred years ago many homes contained a microscope to look at tiny beasties such as water fleas or rotifers. Has the decline of microscopy made us less familiar with protozoa and other small life of ponds? Do people still net water fleas for their fish or create jam-jar ‘infusoria’ with pond-water and hay?

Bug-lore: An average pinch of soil will contain between 10,000 and 10 million single-celled amoebae. Unfortunately only eight people can identify them.

Do you have experiences of being stung by a hornet or bitten by a water boatman? Do you have patent remedies against midges or flies? Are bed bugs (“snug as a bug in a rug”) and hair lice making a come-back? Or, to be more positive, do leeches still have a contribution to make to human health?

Bug-lore: You can tell which horsefly it is from the way it bites. Tabanus attacks bare legs, sneaky Chrysops prefers the back of your neck, and Hybomitra homes in on your crutch.

Bugs, especially butterflies and bumblebees, have become icons of fragility in a changing world. There are action plans to rescue bugs that live on cow-pats or water-beetles confined to a single pond. We would love to know about any local projects to help buglife, especially in the context of gardens and parks, or on brownfield sites in towns. 

“There are no pests because everything in my garden is a source of interest and enjoyment” – Jennifer Owen, entomologist.