Seeking pardon from a squeaking moth

Walking home one night through my village in southern Spain (I cannot recall the month), I came across a great green caterpillar the size of a grown man's middle finger, decorated with yellow and bluish oblique stripes. It must have been walking on its stumpy prolegs for quite some time, for there was no vegetation in the vicinity but for that in the flowerpots adorning the odd doorway and windowsill. This was no place for the young of a death's‐head hawkmoth (Acherontia atropos), especially with curious cats on the prowl (who would no doubt submit it to their painful exploratory pats). So I picked it up, took it home, dropped it off under the flourishing bougainvillea in my courtyard (where I also drop off fruit and potato peelings, etc) in the hope that this might suit it better – and promptly forgot all about it. Until, that is, one warm evening in early June. Something almost as large as that same grown man's thumb was making its way clumsily across my kitchen floor. This was no place for an adult death's‐head hawkmoth, recently eclosed (emerged from its pupa). Under the watchful eye of my own curious cat (who had, as far as I know, not yet initiated any investigative footwork), I took it out onto the patio and laid it on a canna lily flower (Figure 1). That's when I realized that its wings had not yet fully expanded. They never would. The next morning the moth was in the same place, the light revealing its wings not only uninflated, but crumpled and torn; it happens sometimes during eclosion. It could not have fed, so I prepared a bit of sugar in a drop of water on a spoon, a trick I have used to revive out‐of‐gas honey bees. I thought maybe the moth could live out its days wandering my patio, sipping home‐made nectar from a feeder. I offered it the drink, but as the spoon gently touched its head it let out a squeak! I touched it again. And it squeaked again! Hurriedly I looked up death's‐head hawkmoths on Google…and sure enough…they squeak! And…what's this? They raid beehives for honey? So accordingly I tried honey diluted with a little water on the spoon – time and time again. It squeaked, but it never fed. How I wish I knew then what I know now. A few weeks later, my research into the species showed that I was not the first person to have been intrigued by a squeaking, honey‐hunting moth. Accounts of it creeping into hives to steal from bees came from across the animal's range (Europe, Africa, Middle East), and from as far back as the mid‐1700s. And they have given rise to some interesting controversies. The 1838 edition of The British