What makes some insects adorable , and others a bane? Three or four years ago I found a beautiful moth in our bedroom. It was pearlescent white, while its wings were edged with a beautiful coffee coloured band. I hadn't seen one like this before. It seemed sick and frail, so I cradled it in my hand and selected a plant outside where it could recover. By the end of that year, I loathed these delicate insects with a vengeance. For I had discovered the pyrale( or box tree moth.) It is an Asian species that probably came to Europe via exported garden hedging. The first ones were spotted around 2007 . In the interim years it has not only killed all our boxwood, the caterpillars have woven their choking webs and eaten their way throughout the region. The causses, that were once resplendent with fine box wood trees, now look desolate. How can one love such a beautiful creature when it can cause such damage? Its numbers are its downfall.