Spectator's notebook
Sir: While reading the item 'A biology pro- ject' in Christopher Booker's column (22 August), it occurred to me that, with a single exception, I did not meet a teacher of biology interested in anything outside a pickle bottle until I reached university. Mr Booker's encounter on the Berkshire downs would indicate that nothing much has changed on the school biology front in the last twelve years.
It is heartening, however, to meet school- boys like one of my acquaintance. While he has a large collection of both butterflies and moths, he also breeds them in captivity. He then releases the imagines in order to help re-establish breeding populations in areas where certain species are disappearing. It is to be hoped that he, and others like him, will create a viable population of biology teachers who will oust the formalin and physiology variety.
D. R. Smallwood Fitzlea House, Selham, Petworth, Sussex
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