REGARDING the Rev Kevin Logan's views on evolution (Letters, March 1) he seems unaware that some so-called "missing links" have recently been discovered.

That they have eluded detection for so long, is partly due to the fact that bones decay more slowly than soft tissue which can be gone long before fossilisation takes place. Another reason why some of these missing links were not discovered earlier is because they weren't recognised as such.

One of the most important of them shows that some species of dinosaur evolved into birds. This shows, Mr Logan, how one kind of animal can change into another. Fossils of one of these creatures can be seen at the Natural History Museum in London.

Mr Logan asks, how did the bee survive when it was only half a bee? Having kept bees for 69 years, that's an easy one. It survived as less than a tenth of a bee -- an egg. It was then nurtured and fed until it was half a bee in larva (grub) form before going through the pupa (chrysalis) stage before hatching out as a perfect (image) of its ancestors.

Mr Logan says crude chance mutations could never have designed the eye. Again, evolution doesn't work in that way. Should Mr Logan wish, he can read and see diagrams of how, startling out as a blob of jelly able only to detect the difference between darkness and light, the eye developed into a marvellous organ. In the excellent book "Climbing Mount Improbable" by Richard Dawkins, one can read how the eye evolved, with diagrams of eyes of 10 different creatures.

Mr Logan should go to the Natural History Museum and see for himself the one non-controversial missing link that he calls for.

ALBERT MORRIS, Clement View, Nelson.