10 SEPTEMBER 1948, page 17

Heath And Heather How Often Is "heather Honey " Spoken

of as a superior luxury ; but how many of those who use the description know what it means. Honey from bell heather has no particular likeness to honey from ling, which is the......

Country Life

MANY people must have noticed the comparative absence of sparrows from the harvest fields. At one time there was a huge emigration of sparrows from the towns—especially, I......

Farm Implements

Sin,—After reading Mr. Nicolson's Marginal Comment of August 27th I have been rather mystified by his enumeration of modem farm implements ; so much so that much time has been......

Passive Resistance

SIR,—Janus is wrong. To say " I was sent a gold watch " is not perfectly correct, but very bad English, as he will find if he tries to parse the word " watch "—or imagine a......

More Sea - Birds The Ups And Downs Of The Bird Population

are usually hard to explain. In recent years quite a number of species of sea-bird have multiplied conspicuously. One is the Oyster-catcher, which has been seen even in inland......

Class Distinctions

SIR, —Mr. Arwyn Thomas is to be congratulated on his letter of Septem- ber 3rd. To concentrate so much hatred and abuse into eleven lines of The Spectator was something of an......

Parasites In Butterflies

SIR,—May I point out that few of our butterflies have " cocoons," as mentioned in Country Life column • of August 27th. They nearly all have pupae, with a silk band of......

Canute And The Waves

Snt,—Mr. R. H. Cecil in his excellent article Fun Factory in your issue of August 27th falls into the common error of attributing to King Canute a belief that he possessed......

The Spectator Overseas.

It is still difficult for your friends abroad to obtain THE SPECTATOR owing to currency restrictions. Why not take out a subscription for them? Rates : Ordinary edition to any......

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Britisher "

SIR, —De gustibus—I suspect Janus's taste is not purely pedantic. "Britisher " is a North-Americanism. In whatever sense it may have been used by the United States originally,......

In The Garden

The spate of garden catalogues continues, and it is worth noticing how many new and small firms are taking up the business, and how they all compete in the same class of plant.......

Town Gardens

An example of the urbanized mind is to be seen in a booklet issued at the price of a shilling for the Ministry of Health, with a preface by Mr. Bevan. It opens with a photograph......