Never keep Ducks!

In reply to my story about the Wasp and the Orchid, one of my brothers sent me a salutary message of having seen a Cabbage White Butterfly caught in a spider's web (good story, so far, as they are introduced pests). This Butterfly (obviously female) was seen by a male Butterfly which flew down and mated with the trapped one (did he ask her permission, I wonder?). In so doing, it also got trapped in the web.

Brian left, as the spider approached.

Cabbage White Butterfly, Pieris rapae.

Photo: G Millen. © Australian Museum.

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A correspondent from New Zealand (a temporary visitor to the Land of the Long White Cloud) cast doubt upon my devotion to Peonies, as I was so fond of Ground Orchids. How unfair is that? Peonies are no longer flowering!

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I replied that, analogous to some men's relations with women (but not myself, I stress), I was capable of loving more than one flower at the same time.

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(What a reply I got! A salutary lesson, to do with women in rural Thailand dealing with masculine infidelity, by severing the offending member, and feeding it to the ducks which typically live under the house, apparently. A far more telling message than any homily on morality and ethics.

The moral of the story? Never keep Ducks!