322 
WILD NORWAY. 
up a rampart against the weak tides—the rise here 
being only a foot or two. 
The only small birds noticed on the islands were 
Yellow Wagtails, a pair of Garden-Warblers, and once a 
migrating band of Willow-Wrens. On another islet (close 
to the sea), Kristian called to us to say he had flushed 
an unknown bird, and showed us the tiny tunnel of 
dead grass whence it had risen. “ It was like a wood¬ 
cock ; and that bird in Denmark,” he added, “ is so rare 
that none save the King can afford to eat it! ” Kristian 
had once shot one, and received three kroner for it— 
quite a small fortune. We followed to where he had 
marked the stranger ; and there, endeavouring to hide 
on the barest grass, lay a Corncrake, evidently a new 
arrival and resting after its long sea-journey. 
Leaving the islands and working our way home¬ 
wards across the main salt-grass, we came on two 
colonies of Avocets, which, with graceful, duck-like flight, 
hovered around, filling the air with sharp, jerky pipes. 
They were rather wild, and their eggs lay strewn on 
the short grass, with only slight attempts at a nest, just 
as in Spain. Some clutches numbered four, and one 
five eggs, all fresh. We also fell in with an Oyster- 
catchers nest with four eggs, and several more of 
reeve, dunlin, etc. A four-mile tramp homewards along 
the fjord, where terns screamed and plunged, and 
waders in hundreds coursed along the shallows, ended 
a delightful day in a Danish marsh. 
These tidal lagoons are, in their season, the resort 
of great quantities of wild-fowl. Ducks, brent, and 
grey geese come in thousands, and the Cimbrian broads 
form the winter-home of half the wild swans in Europe. 
