Sir, – In Diarmaid Ó Muirithe’s Words We Use column (November 14th) I was surprised to read that he had been told by a Wexford fisherman that the red spider crab “did not appear on our southern shores until about 16 years ago” (circa 1995). The Vineys’ recent book Ireland’s Oceans (p71) makes a reference to huge numbers of these crabs in Co Kerry bays in the 1980s. My family was acquainted with them in the early 1940s off the rocks of Brownstown Head on the Tramore Bay side. – Yours, etc,