334 Pictures of Bird Life 



mentioned that on the barns and outbiiildhigs belonging to 

 the house of a Danish nobleman there were, at the time 

 of our visit, no fewer than twenty occupied nests of the 

 White Stork. INIost interesting it was to see so many of 

 these great, handsome birds standing on their nests, and 

 flying overhead with great beaksful of dry grass to line 

 them with, or carrying a hoiinc-houcJic in the shape of a fine 

 fat frog for their wi^'es, busily engaged in family duties. 



Another bird almost as much favoured by the Danes 

 is the Starling. Xearly every house, and even many of 

 the railway-stations, put out bird-boxes for their accommo- 

 dation. Some had a small house, with painted windows and 

 doors and red chimneys, moimted on a pole outside ; while 

 the larger houses sometimes provided free lodgings for sixty 

 or a hundred pairs of Starlings, with a separate entrance- 

 hole and a perch outside for eacli pair. It was very funny 

 to see rows and rows of Starlings all jabbering away at 

 once, like so many old women. 



Driving along the sandy roads of Jutland, a very con- 

 spicuous bird is the Common Bunting. Uttering its simple 

 and monotonous song while perched on the telephone- and 

 telegraph-wires at the roadside, a Bunting is passed so 

 frequently that one begins to tliink it the conunonest bird 

 in Denmark. 



Another roadside bird is the Crested T^ark ; but it 

 seems actually to prefer the village street to the country 

 road, and here it runs about under one's feet close to the 

 houses in the familiar way one expects from a Sparrow 



