ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM DENMARK. 83 



are the Dipper, Ring-Ouzel, Grey Wagtail, Merlin, Curlew, and 

 Common Sandpiper ;* and though Denmark has an extensive 

 coast-line, the Guillemot, Razorbill, and Kittiwake. Other 

 Gulls content themselves with breeding-places in marshes and 

 sand-hills, and on remote islets in lakes and firths ; Terns and 

 the smaller Plovers nest abundantly on the shores, and the 

 species of breeding Ducks are numerous, and their individuals 

 plentiful in favoured localities. 



The following observations on birds in Denmark were made 

 during three visits to that country, in the early summers of 

 1907, 1908, and 1909. They relate principally to West Jutland, 

 but the writer also made some excursions in the neighbourhood 

 of Copenhagen. Though quite superficial t they may, as for 

 long not much on Denmark has appeared in ' The Zoologist,' be 

 of sufficient interest for publication. 



Esbjerg, the only Danish port of any importance on the 

 North Sea, is well known as a landing-place on the way to 

 Copenhagen by many British visitors, few of whom probably 

 spend any time on it. The new town, of bright and not un- 

 pleasing appearance, stands above a low but rather steep brow, 

 .whose sandy slopes are partly planted with fir-trees, and on 

 which the high water-tower is a conspicuous landmark, over- 

 looking harbour and roadstead, and across the narrow strait the 

 shores of Fano (except the very small Mano, a little to the 

 south), the only North Sea island now belonging to Denmark. 

 Fano, about ten miles long and two or three wide at the most, 

 is not unlike the English island of Walney in position and 

 character, but it has, opposite Esbjerg, a good-sized little town 

 (Nordby), and near the south end a smaller village (Sonderho). 

 On the west or North Sea side, overlooking a magnificent extent 

 of the smoothest, most level sand, is the watering-place of Fano 

 Bad, with its pretentious hotels and villas. The greater part 

 of the island consists of uncultivated sand-hills, much like those 

 of the Lancashire coast. These " klitter," in some places 

 planted with conifers, but usually covered with ling and dwarf 

 willow, crowberry, and sea-reed, with rose-heather in the rnarshy 



* Of the first and the last two species a very few breed, 

 f Even in ornithology I was only on holiday in Denmark, and enjoyed, 

 rather than investigated, its bird-life. 



H 2 



