240 PLATALEID.E. 



Amsterdam and Utrecht, and visits to that colony have 

 heen described by Messrs. Sclater and Forbes (Ibis, 1877, 

 p. 412), and by Mr. Seebohm (Zool. 1880, p. 457). Since its 

 drainage, the Spoonbills have moved to the Naarden Meer, 

 about fifteen miles from Amsterdam, covering about 2,300 

 acres in extent, of which a thousand are now being drained ; 

 so that the destruction of another breeding-place of this 

 interesting bird can only be a question of time. Mr. Alfred 

 Crowley, already mentioned in the account of the breeding 

 of the Purple Heron, has furnished the Editor with the 

 following description of his visit on the 27th of May, 

 1884 : — " Taking a small boat in tow, we w^ere punted across 

 the open w^ater, over which were flying numbers of Sand 

 Martins, Swifts, Common and Black Terns, and Black- 

 headed Gulls, the reeds being full of Coots, Moorhens, 

 Sedge and Reed Warblers, &c., and in the distance we saw, 

 rising above the reeds occasionally, a Spoonbill or Purple 

 Heron. On nearing a large mass of reeds, one of the boat- 

 men struck the side of the punt with the pole, when up rose 

 some fifty Spoonbills and eight or ten Purple Herons ; and 

 as we came closer to the reeds there were soon hovering 

 over our heads, within easy shot, some two hundred of the 

 former and fifty or sixty of the latter. Strange to say, not 

 a note or sound escaped from the Spoonbills, and only a few 

 croaks from the Herons. On reaching the reeds we moored 

 our punt, and two of the men, wading in the mud, took us 

 in the small boat about fifty yards through the reeds, where 

 we found ourselves surrounded by Spoonbills' nests. They 

 were placed on the mud among the reeds, built about a foot 

 or eighteen inches high and two feet in diameter at the 

 bottom, tapering to about one foot at the top, where there 

 was a slight depression, in which lay four eggs, or in most 

 cases four young birds ; many ready to leave the nest, and 

 several ran off as we approached. In the nests with young 

 there was a great difference in age and size, one being about 

 a day or so old, and the oldest nearly ready to leave the 

 nest — some two or three weeks old ; so that evidently the 

 birds lay their four eggs at considerable intervals, and begin 



