IMPRESSIONS OF DENMARK. 
305 
an equally wearisome monotony in browns, only relieved 
by white cotton-grass covering some rare patch of bog. 
Wherever mother-earth shows sign of vitality, or where 
^scanty fell-grass lends a tinge of warmer colour, the 
Jutlander has ploughed and tilled it, and is raising a 
crop of rye, about four stalks to the square foot. 
Otherwise the existence of post-glacial man is only 
evidenced by the peat-stacks piled up at long intervals 
or by bony sheep, each tethered to a peg, and literally 
living skeletons. 
No wild-life cheers the ahlheden , not a butterfly 
flits across its sombre waste ; nor birds, save larks, 
kestrels, and a few wheatears—always lovers of sterility. 
There is neither water nor even moisture, and one looks 
in vain even for the stone-curlew. Towards the verge, 
breed a few golden plovers and ring-dotterel—but I 
have written enough to give a naturalist a fair idea of 
these two typical areas of continental Denmark. 
II. The Fens of West Jutland. 
Among the Marsh-Birds. 
In 1889 we had “prospected” the fenlands; and, 
though the lateness of the season and the tropical heat 
had then precluded success, yet we saw enough to 
justify a second visit. To Denmark, accordingly, in 
1893, my brother Alfred and I returned. Leaving home 
on May 8 th, we reached our quarters on the afternoon 
of the 10th, and, within an hour, had set to work. 
For miles around stretched marsh and fen ; but our 
favourite hunting-grounds were focussed about the 
course of a sluggish river, whose serpentine stream, oft- 
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