8 



CORDEAUX : HELIGOLAND. 



in depth. This plateau is about three-quarters of a mile in length 

 by a third of a mile in greatest breadth, with a gentle and continuous 

 inclination from S.W. to N.E. I do not think it would be possible 

 to get a (ticket pitch on any part without a certainty of a long-driven 

 ball going over the cliff into the sea. The common is divided in its 

 greatest length by a broad footway, Kartofel-Ailee, or potato street ; 

 to right and left are the small potato plots, occasionally varied with a 

 few oats — cut green for fodder for the ewes, and with spaces of short 

 turf, on which the milk-ewes are tethered. There is not a cow or a 

 horse on the island, and no wheeled conveyance above a hand-barrow. 



The ui)per plateau is surrounded by a wire fence, the top wire 

 spiked, which follows the cliff-line in and out. This is a favourite 

 ])erching place for the small birds, as Chats, Titlarks, etc. During 

 my stay, however, I did not see any immigrants excepting the 

 Crossbills and a young Cuckoo flying in the street near the post-office. 

 Wheatears, Chats, Pipits, Wagtails, Warblers, and Larks, none had 

 yet arrived. Excepting the Guillemots, Sparrows, StarHngs, and 

 Martins, birds rarely nest on Heligoland ; the Lark, Chaffinch, and 

 Tree-pipit have nested, and also a pair of English Redpoles, in 

 Mr. Gatke's garden, but the nest was destroyed by a cat. 



The Oberland during my stay swarmed with White Butterflies and 

 tlie Lesser Tortoise-shell, also a few Meadow Browns, settling per- 

 petually on the blossoms of Galium verum and Sisymbrium offici?iale. 

 These two plants, now in full bloom, gave the upper plateau the 

 appearance of a mustard-field in flower. Other English weeds are 

 the common thistle, field wound-wort, and cornbind. 



The greater part of these Butterflies were immigrants from the 

 nearest land, forty miles to the eastward. I saw several like flakes 

 of snow drifting across the sea from this direction, and amongst them 

 a single example of Vanessa cardui. W^e have only to see the 

 collection of Lepidoptera and Coleoptera made by Mr.- Gatke to 

 recognise the fact that the migration of insects is here as remarkable 

 as that of birds, but this is a chapter yet to be written. 



Near to the signal station at the S.W. and highest corner of the 

 island, and between there and the lighthouse are the ' throstle-bushes.' 

 I counted six at a distance varying from 50 to 100 yards apart. A 

 'throstle-bush' may be either artificial or natural, like the growing 

 shrubs in Mr. Gatke's garden. These, however, were all artificial, 

 and consisted of a mass of thorns and sticks stuck upright in the 

 ground, ten feet high and about fifteen in width, and four or five 

 feet thick near the ground, gradually thinning to the -top. The near 

 side facing the east is left open, the far side and top are covered 

 with a light net extending to within a foot of the ground, and there 



Naturalist, 



