CORDEAUX: HELIGOLAND. 



9 



fastened to small upright stakes ; from these extends in an horizontal 

 direction the ground net, so arranged that when birds get in there is 

 no getting out. On a migratory night flocks of various Thrushes 

 rush headlong into these shelters — the only refuge on the bleak 

 plateau that they can see before them, frightened by the glare of the 

 lanterns and the beating of sticks, and finding egress impossible on 

 the other side, they flutter down to pass beneath the ground net, 

 from which there is no escape. These decoys are very effective, and 

 immense numbers of migrants, even Hooded Crows, are captured 

 from time to time.* 



The flat shores of Sand-insel offer very considerable attractions to 

 the migrating waders. The island is a cluster of sandhills with a 

 short sandspit extending eastward, and a long and somewhat curved 

 shingle beach to the west. The sea-grass and some slight barriers of 

 brushwood, put down to check the drift of sand, afford but scanty 

 protection to any land birds which may alight here. I only saw a 

 solitary Thrush and a few Sanderlings, Redshanks, Grey Plover — the 

 mere avant couriers of the great bird army so soon to appear. The 

 sandhills swarmed with Grasshoppers, which are greedily gobbled up 

 by a party of young Ducks. Near to the Diinnen pavilion there is a 

 quantity of brushwood packed 'on end' (Lincolnshire— ' double- 

 banded kids ') for repairing the sand-barriers during the winter. This 

 was suggestive of future shelter for any number of Goldcrests or other 

 small immigrants. At this season, however, at least during the 

 greater part of the day, there is little privacy for any birds, as the 

 island is occupied by bathers, and after the bath they sit or recline 

 to the number of eight hundred or more in numerous picturesque 

 groups on the long and narrow belt of shingle which stretches to the 

 west, the bright-coloured wraps and sunshades of the ladies being 

 somewhat suggestive of a bank of many-coloured flowers ; here for 

 hours they remain reading or in conversation, sketch the island, 

 perhaps, on some flat-sided pebble, or lazily watch the long rollers 

 thundering to their feet. Like the Lotus-eaters, 



They sat them clown upon the yellow sand, 

 Between the sun and moon upon the shore : 



And sweet it was to dream of Father-land, 

 Of child, and wife — 

 Only that in this case the sand is not yellow but white, and, when 

 bathing the smallest shell or pebble is clearly visible in six feet of 

 water. 



* Mr. Gatke informs me that on the night of October 14th, in the present 

 autumn, a Heligolander went to the north point of the island with a lantern and 

 cudgel, and there killed seventy-five Hooded Crows roosting on the grass, part of 

 ajnigratory flock which had come in during the evening. 

 Jan. 1888. 



