C RAKE AND BITTERN My thoughts are brought back to the
corn- crake by a card from a North Yorkshire reader, "0 says, 'In answer to what you say about eruerakes; with which I very much agree. I rn ee' that I must suggest that you visit Iona to kgene them. I was there in May, 1955, and both rit),eard and saw them every day, which brought „`trek memories of youth, but then, everything beauty is in Iona.' The corncrake is 1/tobably below the mark where its survival certain, but it will, One hopes, still nest for tli°ng time in out-of-the.rworld corners where scythe is still used, and things go at the Wisttrely pace of the list century. Once, when I w4'my early teens and knew no better, I ,_nlked a field of grass and rushes and put up a which 1 shot without thinking. It was a eiii0rncrake. Gourmets ate them, as they did eggs of the plover, but, guiltily, I buried it, hnr hy then they were not as common as they 'Id been when I first heard them.
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