22 Mr. Philip Crowley on a Visit to the 



keeper of the Mere to meet us at the Keverdyke roadside station 

 of the steam-tram line, for which place we started from Amster- 

 dam at 10.30. Naarden Mere is some 2300 acres in extent, 

 consisting of water, beds of reeds some eight to ten feet high, 

 and marshy and boggy ground, of which about 1000 acres are 

 now being drained, and the owners hope to be able to drain the 

 remainder next year. Large pumping-engines are fixed near 

 Naarden, and are continually pumping the water out of the 

 mere into Zuyder Zee, the ground being raised to prevent it 

 from returnmg. 



Close to the station, in a bed of reeds, I made my first 

 acquaintance with the great reed warbler [Acroeephalus arundi- 

 nacem), which was singing very lustily, but we could not then 

 find the nest. 



After lunch at the keeper's cottage we — that is Mr. Blaauw, 

 my brother, myself, Hutner the keeper, and two assistants — set 

 out on our journey, and after nearly three miles walk most of 

 the way over very springy ground, that would if properly worked 

 prove very rich for the entomologist (where I saw thousands ot 

 the green forester (Procris globularia) and dragonflies, and I 

 might say acres of Lastrea Thelypteris), we came to a punt and 

 small boat. Into the punt we got and took the small boat in 

 tow and punted across the mere. Skimming over the water we 

 saw many swifts, mai'tins, common and black terns, black- 

 headed gulls, and heard, in the reeds, coots, grebes, sedge and 

 reed warblers, great sedge warblers, &c. In the distance we saw, 

 rising occasionally, a spoonbill or purple heron ; altogether the 

 scene was getting interesting. On nearing a large bed of reeds 

 one of the men struck his pole against the side of the punt, 

 when up rose some fifty spoonbills and eight or ten purple 

 herons (Ardea pi(r2)urea). The excitement of the scene increased 

 as we got up close to the reeds and had the pleasure of seeing 

 hovering overhead, all within easy shot, some two hundred 

 spoonbills and fifty or sixty purple herons. Strange to say, as 

 mentioned in one of the former notices, the spoonbills main- 

 tained a ghostlike silence, not a note, a sound, escaped them, and 

 only an occasional croak from the herons. On reaching the 

 reeds we moored our punt, and two of the men wading in the 

 mud some two feet or so deep, took Mr. Blaauw in the small 

 boat through the reeds to the breeding-station, where he landed. 

 They then returned for my brother and me, and pushed the boat 

 with lis on board some fifty yards through the reeds. At this 

 spot we found spoonbills' nests on every side, and many purple 

 herons ; the spoonbills' nests were placed on the ground and 

 were formed of a heap of rotten or decaying reeds, about two feet 

 in diameter at the bottom, tapering to about one foot at the top 

 and about eighteen inches high. On the top was a slight 



