October 6, 1923] 



NA TURE 



517 



Current Topics and Events. 



The report of the Broadcasting Committee ap- 

 pointed on April 24 by Sir William Joynson-Hicks, 

 then Postmaster-General, has now been issued, 

 together with a statement from the present head of 

 the Post Office, Sir Laming Worthington Evans. 

 The committee had to consider : (a) Broadcasting in 

 I all its aspects ; (fe) the contracts and licences which 

 have been or may be granted ; (c) the action which 

 should be taken upon the determination of the 

 existing licence of the Broadcasting Company ; [d.) 

 uses to which broadcasting may be put ; and {e) 

 the restrictions which may need to be placed upon 

 its user or development. The Committee states that 

 broadcasting is of value for instruction and enter- 

 tainment and has great potentialities, and it is 

 recommended that a Broadcasting Board should be 

 established by statute to advise the Postmaster- 

 General, though broadcasting services should remain 

 in the hands of non-Government bodies working 

 under Government licence. The revenue required 

 to maintain broadcasting services is to come mainly 

 from the receiving licence fee. The Committee 

 considers that the existing fee of 105. a year is suffi- 

 cient for the present, and that three-quarters of the 

 receipts might go to meet the costs of broadcasting. 

 As regards licences, a uniform and simple type of 

 licence obtainable without formalities and with 

 practically no limitations on the apparatus is sug- 

 gested for all users. Extension of broadcasting hours 

 and of the wave-lengths in use (350-425 metres) so 

 as to cover the range 300-500 metres, excluding the 

 band 440-460 metres, is also recommended. The 

 Committee considers the immediate application of its 

 scheme desirable, and suggests that the British 

 Broadcasting Company's licence be continued and 

 extended on a modified basis. No recommendation 

 is made on the subject of the protection of British 

 apparatus against foreign competition, the Committee 

 stating that the matter should be dealt with by 

 Parliament. 



Arising out of our recent article on " Inventors 

 and Patents " (Nature, September 8, p. 349), it has 

 been brought to our notice that the interest of 

 patentees and inventors has been made the special 

 aim of the Institute of Patentees (Incorporated). 

 This association was founded in the year 1919, and 

 within a short space of time enrolled some twelve 

 hundred members. It has set up a body of technical 

 advisers to assist the inventor and prevent him from 

 wasting money on useless propositions. In the case, 

 however, of those inventions which contain germs of 

 value, even though the inventions are but crudely 

 presented, the Institute advises their originators as 

 to the best method of developing their productions. 

 To a certain extent, the Institute also acts as a 

 clearing-house, at the same time aiming at submitting 

 to manufacturers such inventions only as have 

 reasonable commercial prospects. In favourable 

 cases, assistance will be given in the direction of 

 obtaining capital for the exploitation of inventions. 

 In order to reduce considerably the huge expense 



NO. 2814, VOL. I I2I 



generally involved in the settlement of disputes pro- 

 ceeding from inventions, a Court of Arbitration has 

 been constituted to which contentious questions may 

 be remitted. At the present time, the Institute is 

 concentrating its efforts on securing an Empire 

 patent, whereby the cost of protecting an invention 

 throughout the British Empire may be materially 

 reduced. At the general meeting in March of this 

 year, the chairman in his presidential address an- 

 nounced that the Institute was recognised by the 

 Board of Trade, and that certain inquiries addressed to 

 that Department were referred immediately to the 

 Institute. It is stated that the Institute is in no way 

 a trading or profit-making concern, for the members 

 of its various advisory and other committees give 

 their services gratuitously. Two classes of members 

 are enrolled. An annual subscription of two guineas 

 secures full membership, while associate-membership 

 for the annual subscription of one guinea is reserved 

 for the genuinely poor inventor. Further particulars 

 are obtainable from the organising secretary at 44 

 Russell Street, London, W.C.i. 



Before the War, Capt. C. W. R. Knight, as a 

 photographer of birds and their nests, was already 

 in the front rank. Being a practised climber, he did 

 not confine his attention to species that build near 

 the ground, and more recently he has specialised and 

 taken the kinematograph as well as the ordinary 

 camera " into the tree-tops " with most successful 

 results. On Monday last, at the Polytechnic Hall, 

 in Regent Street, Capt. Knight used a number of his 

 films and some lantern slides to illustrate to a specially 

 invited audience a lecture which will be repeated 

 daily for the benefit of the public for several weeks 

 to come. Tliere is no need at the present time to 

 emphasise the usefulness of films as records of fact 

 (in contradistinction to portrayals of fiction) where 

 motion has to be illustrated, or the advantage of 

 having them verbally described. Capt. Knight was 

 able to show the climbing of woodpeckers, the rapid 

 flight of birds of prey when catching food for their 

 young, the plucking of the victim, its partition among 

 the nestlings of tender age, the throwing of it whole 

 to them to scramble for when they were older. He 

 also showed special records of young birds exercising 

 their wings and getting into training for flying, as 

 well as their hesitation before they could make up 

 their minds to launch themselves for the first time 

 in the air. Many points of incidental interest were 

 mentioned by the lecturer. The finding of a swift 

 in the nest of a hobby was used as an argument in 

 favour of the latter bird being the swiftest of our 

 hawks. Stress was laid upon the amount of vegetable 

 food eaten by the greater spotted woodpecker ; the 

 writer has known of this bird taking coconut intended 

 for tits, but Capt. Knight described the extraction 

 of kernels from hazel-nuts fixed in the crevices of 

 bark, after the fashion of the nuthatch. Owls were 

 dealt with, as was the daily life of a rookery, while 

 the rearing of young herons was considered in detail. 

 All who are interested in British wild life should go 



