The Bermudian Publishing Company, in the introduction to its annual planner/calendar, offers the following information on the Islands of Bermuda: "Lying about 650 miles east of Cape Hatteras and 3,445 miles west of London, Bermuda enjoys a semi-tropical climate with temperatures rarely above 85 degrees Fahrenheit.'' Let's examine that statement. It is true that we are west of London (51 degrees latitude) a temperature of 85 would indeed be a rarity. However, we are not located north of Newfoundland and 85 degrees is very common in the summer months.

The publishers of the Bermudian Magazine should know that an average summer (July, August and September) is likely to include about 60 days when the maximum is over 85. In fact, last year the Weather Office recorded 75 such days. It would be more correct to say that Bermuda rarely experiences temperatures over 90 degrees.

Additionally, as I have pointed out numerous times in letters to you, Bermuda is not situated east of Cape Hatteras. The direction is nearer east southeast.

(Nor is it an Island off the coast of North Carolina.) And as your readers will have figured out, "west of London'' and "east of Cape Hatteras'' are not compatible.

I won't comment on the claim that Bermuda has two seasons and not four, other than to say we who live here know that we have only two types of weather: sunny and unusual.

PETER J. WILLCOCKS Smith's Parish Clarifying the Constitution February 5, 2001 Dear Sir, I would be most appreciative if you would print the following in your Letters to the Editor section of the newspaper. It is a brief reply to a letter you ran today which was dated January 29 written by an anonymous writer and titled, I presume by you, `Speak up, Mr. Dunkley'. Mr. Editor, I am sure you will agree that I am not shy about speaking out on behalf of myself, the United Bermuda Party, or the people of the Island who have elected me.

It is indeed most unfortunate that the letter writer who signed `I Pledge Allegiance' did not take my offer and call me on my office number as written in my last Letter to the Editor on this subject of dual citizenship. If this had been the case perhaps I could have cleared some of the confusion experienced by the letter writer before he or she took the time and wrote a letter that was very misleading and incorrect in many parts.

The letter writer has missed the main point of my letter, that being our Constitution in Section 30(1)(A) states: "No person shall be qualified to be appointed as a Senator or elected member of the House of Assembly who is, by virtue of his own act, under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power or state.'' Thus when the letter writer makes an issue of a UBP sitting MP who was born in another country but is allowed to serve in the House of Assembly and compares this to Dr. Ewart Brown's situation, I must make two points clear.

First, there is at least one sitting MP on the Government side who falls into the same category as our UBP sitting MP. They, and any other sitting member falling into this category, are eligible under our Constitution.

Secondly, Dr. Brown by "virtue of his own act'' disqualified himself from serving in the House of Assembly until he renounced his citizenship.

I might add that Dr. Brown, as he commented when interviewed by the Press years back when this story surfaced, said he obtained his US citizenship for the purpose of sitting on the Board of Governors of Howard University. At the time one was not able to sit on this board unless you were a US citizen. I believe that he was already a practising doctor with his business set up in California, as it still operates today. In this regard I applaud Dr. Brown for his entrepreneurial spirit. However until he renounced his US citizenship he disqualified himself from serving in this House.

So the question and comment that the letter writer made -- "Is it not madness that we have a Bermudian who did what was necessary to gain international experience, to now have the UBP bash him upside the head for bringing his talent to the Island?'' -- is absolute hogwash.

Thus my message to `I Pledge Allegiance' from Sandys would be please stick to the facts. Contrary to the writer's opinion this matter is not an attempt by the UBP to grasp at straws to turn voters against the PLP. This issue, amid others that we deal with, are attempts by the Opposition to speak on behalf of many in the community. We will not be silenced. We have a huge responsibility which we are committed to doing to the best of our ability.

In closing I will leave my number again, 236-0153, with the hope that it will be used by those who so chose to contact me directly to make some positive progress on this issue, or any other, that might arise. Unlike many Government members, I will return the call if I am not available when telephoned.

MICHAEL DUNKLEY MP Devonshire South Vegetarian blood only February 6, 2001 Dear Sir, I was interested to read your comments on BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) and CJD (Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease) in yesterday's Editorial, and the planned ban on blood donors who had spent significant time in Europe during a 16-year period.

As with any other medical or surgical intervention, the act of transfusing blood must be assessed as a risk. The question is always, will the benefits outweigh the risk? For the patient who has suffered significant, critical and sudden blood volume depletion, the risk of not transfusing blood, or should we say, having no blood of the appropriate type available would far outweigh the risk to that patient of receiving blood from one of the now-disqualified donors.

I should also like to comment on the futility of this measure in the light of the fact that several leading supermarkets certainly imported beef and other bovine products directly or indirectly from the UK during the same time period. Meat-eating residents of Bermuda during that time period should therefore also be disqualified. It is illogical and indeed counterproductive for Bermuda to run blindly behind the US measures, a country which produces most of its own beef, or imports mainly from South America and Canada.

According to this reasoning, if the Red Cross wanted to be absolutely safe, they would have to solicit blood donations from vegetarians only.

DR. A.M. WARE-CIETERS The Hannover Veterinary Hospital Leave the cats alone February 6, 2001 Dear Sir, I see it is that time of year again, for all the pseudo-scientists, environmentalists on Government payroll and ecological illiterates to denounce the feral cat programme.

When I returned home 18 years ago, the feral and abandoned and neglected domestic cat problem was phenomenal, depressing and overwhelming. BFAB has set up a system of population control with the help of sound veterinary advice and methods suited to Bermuda's unique but increasingly urban environment. And it is working better than might be expected, considering the garbage problem continues.

The science of population control is not as simple as "kill them'' and the same factors which control the population of any species, also control the feral cat population: food supply, health, available habitat, weather conditions and other catastrophic events. The reproductive potential of the individuals increases when competition for food decreases.

The truly feral cats in Bermuda are absolutely nocturnal, and avoid any human contact. These animals are predators, certainly, but given the easier route of feeding on garbage, will always do so. These feral cats do not waste any energy on recreational hunting. They are opportunists. They are not to be found scaling up poles to bluebird nests in the middle of the night, or on the cliff edges hanging precariously over the edge where longtails are nesting.

They are to be found in the wee hours of the morning wherever Bermuda residents have put their household garbage out in flimsy plastic bags 3 days before garbage collection. They are to be found in open refuse skips outside certain culinary establishments. They are to be found wherever there is incorrectly sealed waste food. They are to be found in large numbers at Government garbage depots and dumpsters.

In my 18 years in practice, I have looked at the stomach contents of many a feral cat. I have never found any parts of a wild bird. Recently, in our Hospital we have started to X-ray all the trapped cats brought to us by BFAB.

As yet we have not picked out any avian skeletal parts.

Here are some of the most prominent reasons for death in wild birds of Bermuda: gale force winds (exhaustion, drowning); flying into glass of tall buildings (concussion); road traffic (hitting windshield, run over); and pesticides (POPS or persistent organic pesticides concentrated in birds due to their high metabolic rates); loss of habitat and accompanying loss of food (unrelenting destruction of woodland and open spaces); noise pollution; and other general forms of pollution leading to loss of immune competence and therefore increasing disease in individuals.

I suppose, as long as there is a political acceptable and convenient "Feindbild'' in the feline, all those whose business it is to address some of the above-mentioned environmental and sanitary problems can go on pretending to do a worthwhile job, drawing down ridiculous salaries, and justifying their existence.

We require legislation and enforcement which addresses the problems of open or poorly contained household garbage, open skips, import and use of pesticides, import of plastics, burning of plastics, lack of scrubbers on the effluent stacks of the incinerator and BELCO plants. One could fill a page, a book perhaps.

But no, instead lets put on our collective binoculars, focus on the declining bluebird population, and blame it all on the cat.

DR. A.M. WARE-CIETERS The Hannover Veterinary Hospital