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CHAPTER XXI. 
THE NORTH SEA. 
Notes on Bird- and Insect-Migration, 
OBSERVED DURING TWENTY-FOUR VOYAGES. 
Between us and our Scandinavian playgrounds rolls 
the North Sea, and its four or five hundred miles of 
unquiet waves mean misery to many, and tax the 
patience of most of us. The North Sea is the scene of 
busy human industry, yet the spectacle of the trawling- 
fleets on the Dogger, picturesque as they are, avails 
little to vary the monotony, and perhaps induces a 
sense of melancholy, from sympathy with the lot of 
men exposed for weeks at a time in these tiny craft 
to the buffeting of the waves, and to every vicissitude 
of wind and weather on the wild North Sea. 
Perhaps, however, they are, after all, in no worse 
case than millions of their kind on shore. 
Dozens of sloops of various nationalities diligently 
glean the harvest of the deep, and among them bustle 
to and fro the busy little “ steam-carriers/’ or hollow- 
welled steamers, which convey the fish to market. 
Further out, one passes through the Scandinavian 
mackerel-fleets, “ harling ” for these fish with big white 
flies on lines set from a spinnaker-boom—the bulk of 
