Sir,- Frances Russell Powder (letters 8th March) in her list of famous vegetarians, neglects to mention history's most famous vegetarian of all, Adolf Hitler, the man who banned the boiling of live lobsters because it was cruel, but had no compunction about consigning eleven million people to a gruesome death in his concentration camps.

I see that her list also included Joanna Lumley, who a few years ago was fronting a long-running advertising campaign for a famous brand of yoghurt. As far as I am aware, yoghurt is made from milk, which comes from cows.

What does Ms Powder think happens to the cows when they cease to produce milk? Does she think they get sent to rest homes for elderly cows?

Has she also considered that those who exercise cruelty on defenceless animals' includes animals themselves?

Foxes, for instance, a species most Animal Rights people seem to be devoted to, are immensely destructive of animal life, and kill indiscriminately, slaughtering chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, guinea pigs, anything they can get their teeth into, without eating most of what they kill.

I wonder if the vegetarian brigade, when they have managed to convert the whole human race to vegetarianism, will start trying to reform the cruel eating habits of foxes and other carnivores? We are designed by nature to eat other species, it's called the food chain, and even if you succeed in removing humans from it it is still going to continue.

I look forward to the day when we see vegetarians visiting foxes in their dens to persuade them of the virtues of eating tofu and veggieburgers, it will be interesting to see what progress they make.

As for Di van Outerstep's observation that we have removed animals' natural' way of life, the natural way of life for most animals is to end up being killed by some other animal, or dying of starvation because they are no longer fit to forage for food. That's nature, red in tooth and claw.

-Louise O'Connor, Vancouver Road, Ham.