Appropriate coats-of-arms and mottoes were demanded for• various imaginary bodies.

The names of the imagined societies for which grants-of-arms were requested were chosen to give a wide degree of incongruity and improbability. Competitors were expected (vide the suggestion of Peacock's Crotchet Castle, chi., as model) to loose their most caustic shafts at these curious congregations of people, supposedly bound together• in an interest of a fantastic or fascinatingly unlikely kind. Of a moderate-sized entry quite a few treated the task with a seriousness which suggests that the deep interest in, and under- standing of, heraldry is more widespread than I had imagined—or has Coronation Year made people more conscious of the craft? Several devices submitted would have caused the raising of no eye- brow at the College of Heralds.

Those who aimed for the satiric or plain comic possibilities of what might make an appropriate coat-of-arms for a group of critics, space- travellers, tax-inspectors, back-benchers, psychiatrists, etc., produced the best entries—concise, selevant and trenchantly underwritten by revealing mottoes. Oddly, only one thought of a motto in French, and practically nobody thought a motto worth having if committed to plain English; anyway the Latin always sounds more dignified. I hope my translations caught what the entrants intended.

Only a few succeeded in emphasising the incongruity of certain of the associations. Really good actors and really good critics, for instance, do not hobnob. Each is too much aware of what the other daren't say, and those friendships that do sometimes occur suddenly collapse when one party says or does something which the other considers professionally unforgivable. And from my limited acquaintance with both astronomers and astrologers 1 should judge that each feels nothing but-contempt for the other's calling. Nobody apparently cares about London's plant-life, which experts assure us has a fascinating variety and prodigious powers of endurance) anyhow, no competitor thought much of a society formed solely to study and conserve it. Neither did the suggested "London Monu- ments Preservation Guild" find any sympathisers. Dreadful thought! Am I the only person who is haunted by all those (apparently) thousands of granite nightmares that misadorn so many streets and squares? I had expected many people to share my feeling that a few hundreds of them cannot be pulled down (or adapted, painted, boxed- in or rusticated) quickly enough.

The poison pens got happily to work on tax-inspectors, back- benchers and psychiatrists; fewer spent their ingenuity on the other trades and interests. These three categories were belaboured (via the indignities suggested for their quarterings) heavily, though more often with pungency than with irony. Nobody produced it possible shortlist that did not include either the tax-inspectors or the back- benchers; too many treated the astronomical gentlemen seriously; too, too many were only facetious about both beer tasters and Alcoholics Anonymous.

Here are some of the better singfetons from various lists.

Alcoholics Anonymous: A white shield covered with print, bearing a central device of a news-sheet inscribed "Au: Omnia aut nihil" (All or Nothing). On one side a foaming mug of beer, on the other a water carafe.

Professional Psychiatrists' Golf Club : A shield with a well- convoluted human brain above which a triangle of six golf-balls. Over, a helm with a bee in it. On each side a golf-club bag. The whole in glorious Technicolor. Motto: "We mind our tees and queues."

Institute of Beer Tasters: Helmet, a party hat. Mantling, hop leaves. Bearers, pink elephants. Escutcheon, quartered, depicting (1) an oast-house, (2) triple snakes wearing top hats, (3) rose-tinted spectacles, (4) a figure 8 surmounted by a figure 1. Motto: "Hic, haec, hoc."

Actors and Critics Friendly Association : Upper panel, a gallery with gods. Lower panel, left, a dramatic critic heavily disguised as a winged cupid discharges from a cloud of clichés a sharply pointed pen at, right, an actor suppliant. A cothurnus, a false nose and a scroll indicate respectively Tragedy, Comedy and Tele- vision Drama. Motto : " Odi et Amo " (t both hate and love).

Of the finalists none sustained this kind of invention throughout; an obscure reference, an unwieldy pun, too much solemnity, marred the total effect of each list. Two entrants got closest to what I had hoped for, and Granville Garley 's faithfulness to my Peacock model ties with R. S. Stanier's iconoclastic brevity of entries. To these two, first prizes of two guineas each; and one guinea for H. A. C. Evans for his neat twistings of proper heraldic terms to his purpose.

PRIZES

(GRANVILLE GARLEY) Psychiatrists: A human figure couchant; surrounded by, a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles (to show knowledge), a'hypodermic syringe (to show the means), a ball of gold rolling into a hole (to show the end). Motto: "De Pr•ofundis" (Out of the depths).

Actors and Critics: Crest : a lion and a lamb, recumbent. Arms : a rapier sheathed (denoting friendship), a stage-door open (denoting welcome), a giant striding (denoting a long run). Motto: "If you scratch my back. . . ."

Tax Inspectors' Operatic Society: A demand note, rampant, surmounted in triplicate by an open eye (for watchfulness), a leech (for perseverance) and a thumb-screw (for ruthlessness). Super- imposed over these a conductor's baton, baston or bar sinister (denoting illicit pleasure officially condoned). Motto: "Functus Officio" (Having done with the office(?)).

(R. S. STANIER) Actors and Critics Friendly Association: Three pens barbed, poisonny, impaling three stars erased, rampant. Motto: "Oh et Amy" (1 both hate and love).

Back-benchers' Dining Club: Under a chief embattled, six sup- porters, opposed, dormant but votant, Motto: "Qui dont dine."

League of Train Watchers and Autograph Hunters: A train, passant, three pencils pursuant, supported by two bleeding boys. Motto: "Regions Caesar never knew."

(H. A. C. EvANs) Bird Watchers: Crest, a periscope rampant. Arms, on a scrubby ground a human figure, crouchant, bearing binoculars, regardant. Juxtaposed, three wildfowl, respectively volant, serpent, perchant. Motto: "Fiat dux" (! ! V.P.S.).

Psychiatrists: Crest, a cycle, fraudulent. Arms, on a background of figures couchant a complex arrangement of golf-clubs, to symbolise the ego ; above, a pyramid of golf-balls, to symbolise the id. Motto: "Floreat insania.'

Alcoholics Anonymous: Crest, a pink elephant fugiant. Arms, a newsprint figure on a bender, bearing a glass, charged, in a bar

sinister, all cancelled. Motto: "Hic nos non" (This is /Jot you).