From little acorns

IN his treatise on the jay (October 11), David Profumo noted its contribution to the propagation of our oak forests through its activities as a specialist hoarder of acorns. For hundreds of years before it was persecuted as an enemy of the game shoot and the population thinned out, the jay was plentiful and its role in the growth of our oak forests was long established. Thus the bird played a central role in the steady supply of stout timbers for shipbuilding, crucial to the survival of the nation and its growth as a world power.

I have long felt that the jay should be recognised as our national bird, yet it didn’t even make the shortlist in last year’s public referendum. Instead, voters chose the robin—a tuneful, charming and accessible fellow, but, frankly, he has given the nation little more than a dose of sentimental Christmas-card symbolism. In the screech of the jay I hear ‘injustice’. Ian Morton, Wiltshire