TAKES HIS DOCTOR'S DEGREE IN HOLLAND 269 



heron's flapping flight. Here we cross the borders of 

 what is now part of Germany. Slesvig was Danish 

 in. Linnaeus's time. Here are women working in the 

 fields a sight seldom seen in Sweden. The yellowing 

 barley and blue-green waving blades of wheat have 

 superseded the browner blooming rye of the north. 

 Here, too, are thistles a rarity to Linnaeus, there are so 

 few thistles in his country. Here they fix the heads of 

 the cows and sheep in a long heavy wooden framework 

 to keep them from migrating over the border. It is a 

 most uncomfortable form of collar. 1 There are goats 

 (collarless) and various other animals about. The ground 

 is level here and boggy ; not. so well farmed as Jutland, 

 nor so well peopled ; a dismal, swampy, flat, unprofitable 

 country. I marvel at the Germans coveting it. They 

 did not need it even to complete their ring fence. 

 Perhaps if they had left it under the government that 

 does not require so many soldiers ' Death's staunch pur- 

 veyors ' it would have been better for the land. c One 

 sighs to think how these unproductive consumers of 

 Wurst, with all their blue and scarlet broadcloth, are 

 maintained out of the pockets of the community. 2 ' 



The country is all but emptied for military service ; 

 otherwise it might be good land if cultivated. We 

 hear nothing of compulsory military service for the 

 young men in Linnaeus's time in Scandinavia, that ia. 

 The land improves as we travel on, but it is still flat as 



1 What is their Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 

 about ? 2 G. Eliot. 



