296 Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 



Herr Wiuge states that we " specially collected ^' some of 

 the rarest of Danish birds ; but he only specifies two — the 

 Godwit and the Avocet. Of these we shot one male and one 

 female of each — total, four — and the whole of our" collecting^' 

 was on the same moderate scale. We have submitted to the 

 Editors of ' The Ibis ' the whole catalogue of crime, but the 

 list is really too paltry and insignificant to be worth printing. 

 Suffice it to say that fewer than two dozen specimens in all 

 were brought home, and of these several were obtained from 

 local gunners^ who seem to shoot right merrily throughout 

 the close-season. On some days the pop-popping of guns 

 was going on in every direction, afloat and ashore^ and these 

 people were shooting for shooting's sake — a very different 

 thing from the discriminate selection of a few specimens. 



Again, our critic reproaches us with taking eggs. But is 

 he not aware that every egg found on these marshes is swept 

 up at regular intervals all through the season, for food ? 

 The eggs of Duck or Wader, Gulls and Terns, Avocet, 

 Reeve, Pintail, and the rest, all go in thousands to feed the 

 hungry Jutlander, — so what could our few specimens matter? 

 If Herr Winge is not aware of these facts — of the indis- 

 criminate shooting and egging — then he does not know the 

 Jutland coast, as he claims to do and as we really do ; if he 

 is aware, then his attack on us is unwarranted and hardly 

 ingenuous. 



The eggs of Godwit, we may add, are safe enough, as these 

 birds breed sporadically on deep and dangerous bog, where no 

 one but such hardened criminals as ourselves care to venture, 

 Herr Winge is also wrong in classing the Avocet as " rare " ; 

 it breeds in scores — if not hundreds — together in West 

 Jutland. 



Herr Winge doubts our Pelicans, and suggests that they 

 were Gulls seen under " hildring " conditions. But such a 

 mistake is not at all likely to be made by men accustomed 

 all their lives to the observation of Wildfowl under all or 

 any atmospheric conditions. Moreover, there was no " hild- 

 ring" on that bright May morning when the eight Pelicans 

 sat preening themselves off the salt-spit in that Cimbrian 



