WAYSIDE NOTES FROM THE CONTINENT. 355 
the most familiar species, yet it is surprising in the course of a 
long journey, and with the aid of a binocular, how much can be 
done; and at least it may be said the occupation secures one 
good purpose in whiling away the time, and adding also some- 
thing of interest to an otherwise dull and uninteresting route. 
With the help of the glass I was able to make out many of our 
common home birds, and two new ones, the White and the 
Blue-headed Wagtail. Herons were especially numerous, either 
standing unconcernedly by the sides of the drains or flapping 
lazily across the swampy meadows. Cormorants not uncommon 
in the neighbourhood of the great estuaries; a few Sheldrake on 
the oozy flats; Curlews, and some smaller waders which looked 
very much like Knot. In the marshes Rooks, Starlings, and 
Lapwings were abundant. 
At Wesel we are in another land, crossing the Rhine by an 
iron bridge with a strong tété du pont, where the blue-coated and 
brass-helmed sentinels of Prussia keep their ceaseless watch 
from the summit of big earthworks, and from grass-grown 
embrasures black muzzles of heavy guns protrude like crouching 
bulldogs sullenly guarding the frontier. The route from Wesel 
by Hanover to Berlin, excepting some small portions of West- 
phalia, is singularly uninteresting, vast level plains of a naturally 
poor and sterile soil, yet wherever capable the untiring energy 
and patient toil of the German peasant has raised them to the 
highest pitch of cultivation. Then there are vast tracks of pine- 
forest, where the trees are dwarfed and stunted, and much silver 
birch; but everywhere a scarcity of timber. Interminable 
stretches of brown heath, as level as a billiard-table, support 
the scantiest vegetation, where grey stones and sand crop out in 
bare patches. 
I have frequently noticed how rarely during a long railway- 
journey on the Continent, compared with our own country, we 
see any game. In this long day of fifteen hours by rail I did not 
see a single Partridge, Pheasant, or Rabbit. Only some half- 
dozen Hares were feeding in the twilight on the outskirts of the 
corn strips, and two or three Deer in the forests. 
On the sandy plains near Hanover I first noticed Crested — 
Larks (Haubenlerche) ; they are readily distinguishable in flight, 
even ata considerable distance, by the light buff-brown of the 
outer tail-feathers, and the absence of any white. 
