396 Mr. H. J. Elwes’s Field-notes 
numerous, had hardly began breeding, a single nest with two 
eggs being all we found. Picus viridis and P. minor are 
both somewhat rare in Denmark, and P. martius is not known 
to breed in the country. Picus medius seems here, as I have 
observed in Turkey, to prefer the neighbourhood of swampy 
places wooded with alder, in the trunks or branches of which 
tree its nest-holes, somewhat smaller than those of P. major, 
are made. A hole was pointed out to us by Mr. Benzon 
from which last year he had procured three successive clutches 
of eges, numbering, I think, twenty-one in all. 
Philomela major is here not uncommon, breeding every 
year in much such spots as the Common Nightingale selects ; 
but it was too soon to hear them now, so [ had no opportunity 
of comparing the song with that of our Nightingaie. 
The next day we visited a marsh called Suborg-s6, about 
five miles from Copenhagen, where is a large colony of Larus 
ridibundus, and where Podiceps rubricollis breeds abundantly. 
The nest and eggs of this Grebe are nearly as large as those 
of P. cristatus, and resemble them in every respect except size ; 
three seemed to be the usual number of eggs laid, but there 
were four in two nests. It seems to be the case in Denmark 
that though four species of Grebe breed in the country, they 
do not frequent the same pieces of water, as I never saw two 
species together. 
On Suborg-s6 we were also fortunate enough to find a 
pair of Circus eruginosus breeding, and after some search dis- 
covered the nest, though I was nearly anticipated by a Crow 
in getting the eggs. The nest was placed on a tussock in a 
very wet spot, so that it could not be approached without a 
boat, and contained six eggs of the usual type. 
Black Terns were also abundant here, but had not yet laid, 
and four or five nests of Mallard were close together on a 
little island where we lunched. 
Near Copenhagen we heard of a breeding-place of the Turn- 
stone on the island of Saltholm, where several pairs are found ; 
but on the island of Lesso, in the Cattegat, it is said to be 
extremely numerous. We did not visit either of these islands 
