Voice from the past
Sir: J. W. M. Thompson, in 'Spectator's note- book' (18 April) regrets that no English school- boy can now expect to hear the grating voice of the corncrake in England's industrialised countryside.
In one part of Scotland at least it is still pos- sible for schoolboys or even rather deaf adults to hear the corncrake's oddly endearing call. In the Uists, in the Hebrides, on a summer's day on the machair lands you might hear five or six discordant voices at a time calling hard and often in tones tuneful to other corncrakes or to God.
But perhaps even these voices from the corn- crake twilight will soon be stilled. 'Boom time' is foreshadowed by the vast development of the missile range on the islands and when pro- gress is on the march crofters, corncrakes, fisher- men and, of course, peace must give way.
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