12 JANUARY 1929, Page 15

The advocate for shortbread, whose garden is in Great Malvern,

gives a very interesting and suggestive list of foods in order of preference. " My little friends . . . feast on beef fat (preferred to mutton), coco-nuts, bread and butter, monkey nuts, a mash of oatmeal and puppy-dog biscuits, hemp seed, Brazil nuts, cheese (which vanishes very rapidly) and brown bread. But all this is neglected if I put out pie-crust or, best loved of all, shortcake. It is really funny to see the crowd working at that. The nuts are in a net bag hanging by a wire." I can corroborate the fondness of birds for monkey-nuts, and know one garden where these are suspended all along a string, to which the birds cling engagingly and open the soft shells at either end.