CORDEAUX: HELIGOLAND. 



3 



perhaps deceived by the drift of some bottle-cork ; often, too, several 

 stoop at the same object, and then there is a chorus of angry screams 

 as the least successful of the graceful foragers mount to their former 

 level. Out of hundreds seen thus following the steamboats, I did 

 not identify an Arctic Tern {Sterna macrura), a fact rather remarkable 

 considering how common this species is on the English coast. 

 Amongst the Terns which follow in our wake down the Elbe was a 

 - Little Gull {Larus minidiis). This was an adult, but it had the 

 black on the head much broken, the forehead and occiput being 

 streaked with greyish-black. The flight was very elegant and tern- 

 like, its stoop also was that of a tern, and when hovering and in 

 the act of taking food, the tail, which was pure white above and 

 below, was expanded to the full, and I then noticed it was slightly 

 but perceptibly forked. 



As we approach Heligoland from the Elbe the island appears to 

 much advantage ; first, as a grey-blue lump on the horizon, massive 

 and square, and as mile after mile are run over, slowly the natural 

 features develop, a narrow green stripe of upper cliff crowning the 

 broad deep band of red sandstone, and lowest of all and to the 

 foreground are the white sands of Sa?id-tnsel, or Sandy Island. 

 Green, red, and white — these three colours in successive stripes 

 constitute the flag of this small dependency, for so runs a rhyme : — 



Gron is dat Land, 

 Rohd de Kant 

 Und witt de sand : 

 Dat is dat Wappen 

 von Helgoland. 



Some miles off at sea the lodging-houses on the upper plateau 

 (Oberland) stand out very prominently in blocks along the edge of 

 the cliff, and beyond is the spire of the church and the lighthouse. 

 The land below the clifl" (Unterland) is also seen to be crowded with 

 houses, mostly erections of wood. The steamboats anchor in the 

 Sound, between the main island and the diine (Sand-insel). Passengers 

 are landed at the pier— the chief promenade — in boats. There is no 

 trouble about luggage, which is taken to the waiting-house in the 

 Unterland ; you can choose lodgings and then go and claim the 

 luggage, which is carried by porters to your rooms. 



There is a curious old map of Heligoland, reproduced by 

 Herr Rudolph Crell in his Guide*, which shows the island (from 



* This map was originally drawn by the Royal Mathematician, Johannes Meier, 

 of Husum, Denmark (born 1606), and appeared in ' The New Topography of the 

 Dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein,' by Biirgermeister Dr. Kasper Daukwerth, 

 at Husum, in 1652. 



Jan. 1888. A 2 



