I AM writing to you regarding the letter in last Wednesday's Adver, entitled 'Who killed cock robin?'.

Writer J Curtis wonders where all our songbirds have gone. Perhaps I can help. Many of the insects, butterflies and creepy-crawlies that these birds used to rely on have been slowly wiped out by farmers with their insecticides, pesticides, artificial fertilisers and weedkillers.

As for his comment about a mangy fox biting heads off chickens, surely this is a better way to die than being ripped to pieces by a pack of hounds or spending your life in a battery cage never seeing daylight or breathing fresh air or being transported hundreds of miles in cramped conditions with no food or water. Who is it that injects their animals with antibiotics and growth hormones which end up in the human food chain? It's farmers, of course, and they do all these wonderful things for one reason and one reason only: profit.

M KING

Wootton Bassett

(full address supplied)