on the Birds of Denmark. 387 
Baltic. Of underwood there is but little, though in spring 
the ground beneath the beech is green with a carpet of wood- 
anemone (Anemone nemorosa), wood-sorrel ( Oxalis acetosella) , 
bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), Trientalis europea, and other 
plants, while ling, juniper, and broom occupy the skirts and 
open places of the wood. All round for miles the country is 
bare and almost treeless, so that the birds of prey must of 
necessity congregate during the breeding-season, and being 
in the forest unharrassed by gamekeepers, are very numerous. 
After a hospitable reception from the lady who lives here and 
owns the estate, we made inquiries as to the Black Storks, 
and were told that, owing to their old nest having been oc- 
cupied by a pair of Buzzards, which we found had already 
hatched their young, it was believed that they had not yet 
laid in the new nest which they had built. Notwithstanding 
this we went out with the forester, and in a few hours found 
and took, within a radius of not more than a mile or so from 
the house, one Kite’s nest, containing one egg, two Buz- 
zard’s, with two eggs each, two Goshawk’s, with three eggs 
in one nest and four in the other, and a Raven’s nest with 
fully fledged young ones. Owing to the comparatively small 
size of the trees, and the help of some large screws invented 
by Mr. Seehusen, which we found most useful, as they 
afford a safe means of climbing trees which would otherwise 
be inaccessible, I had no great difficulty in getting up to the 
Kites’ and Goshawks’ nests myself, and found that the former 
was lined with wool and the latter with a leathery lichen 
which grows abundantly on the trees. 'The Goshawk arrives 
in the country about the middle of April, builds or repairs a 
large nest of sticks on some tree near the outskirts of the 
forest, laying in it three, four, or rarely five eggs, about the 
last week in April. The hen birds sit and, unless disturbed 
once or twice, are not very shy. One I killed as she went 
off the nest, and another I got by waiting near the tree and 
shooting her as she swooped over my head, twenty minutes 
afterwards, on her way back to the nest. 
The flight of the Goshawk, though strong and quick, seems 
laboured and clumsy in comparison with that of the long- 
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