VI 
of Bird Migration was carried on by energetic observers who highly 
appreciated Mr. Mortensen’s pioneer work. 
Personally Hans Christian Cornelius Mortensen was 
a quiet and unpretentious man, often somewhat reserved towards 
strangers; his life accordingly passed uneventful. He was born 
August 27th 1856 at Jonstrup Seminary where his father, the well 
known florist, Hans Mortensen, was a teacher of natural science; 
his mother, Birthe Pedersdatter, was originally from Falster. 
In 1874 he became an undergraduate at Frederiksborg college and 
took his degree of philosophy in the next year. He was for some 
time in doubt as to the choice of a profession, started with theo- 
logy, and changed to medecine. His great interest in nature how- 
ever manifested itself from his earliest childhood, and, developed 
partly by instruction from his father, partly indirectly through the 
influence of the richness and beauty of the nature in which he 
had grown up, soon gained the victory, and he devoted himself to 
f 
the study of natural history. His rather free studies were never 
terminated by any final degree, especially because he had to sup¬ 
port himself, and soon he became so deeply engaged in school 
teaching that no time was left for particular studies for a degree. 
From 1876 till 1888 he was a teacher at different schools in Copen- 
hagen, and then left for Viborg. In this refined and quiet little 
provincial town he spent the remainder of his life as an Adjunct 
at the cathedral college, and from 1909 till 1919, when illness 
forced him to retire from his post, as a Lector. He died on June 
7th 1921. 
Though Mr. Mortensen like his father was fully occupied by 
his official duties during all his lifetime, he also used his free time 
for researches in his particular line of interest. These studies did 
not pass entirely without notice; in 1887 the University of Copen- 
hagen granted him an accessit for an investigation of the Danish 
reptiles, and in 1896 he received a prize from Videnskabernes 
Selskab for a treatise on Danish mice. For some unknown reason 
none of these papers have been printed, except for a short, not 
uninteresting note on the pairing of lizards 1 ) which is probably a 
summary of the first mentioned paper. 
l ) Die Begattung der Lacerta vivipara Jacq. (und Lacerta agilis Wolf). Zool. 
Anz., X, 1887. 
