A colleague was spraying his greenhouse in the Dublin suburbs when he failed to notice a cobweb and put his hand through it. A few seconds later he felt a very sharp pain on the back of his left hand. At first he thought had been stung by a wasp or bee but, on looking down, he saw a spider running away. Within minutes his hand had swollen up quite badly and was very painful. Six days later, although the swelling had subsided somewhat, the site of the bite still looked like a very angry boil and was still painful. Since when are Irish spiders aggressive - or is it possible that the spider was some kind of tropical import? - David Nolan, Santry, Dublin 9.
The larger Irish spiders can bite through tender skin, such as the creases of a hand, but not usually causing more irritation than a nettle sting. However, some people react more strongly than others to venomous bites. Spiders have no real jaws, instead they have a pair of pincers, called chelicerae, which are poison fangs. They sink these in a victim and pump venom into the wound to subdue their prey.
On a recent sunny afternoon two butterflies flew into my garden followed by a third; they seemed to be two males courting a female. The males were boxy, white in colour with distinct orange segments on the outward half of each from wing, edged by a slight brown bar. The bottom of their hind wings was prettily scalloped like a piecrust. The female's wings were white and more swept back, with pretty lines and ticking in dark grey, and she had even prettier scalloping. Someone told me they were the type that feed on honesty plants, but I have none, nor have my neighbours. A very snappish wasp dive-bombed them and drove them away. - Helen Lucy Burke, Dublin.
They were orange-tip butterflies. The male is the one with the orange-tipped wings. The larvae feed on plants of the crucifer family: lady's smock, stocks, cresses, rocket, honesty, etc. It was likely that the butterflies were near, or on the flight path to, a wasps' nest.
A Kilkenny reader has written to say that she also has a tame female blackbird (Eye May 8) that comes into her house to be fed.