198 IN DUTCH WATER MEADOWS 



where unreclaimed land is, in proportion to population, 

 greater than it is with us. 



Slowly or quickly, the same process of extermination 

 is going on everywhere. The Dodo and Great Auk 

 have disappeared. The Ground Parrot, the Kiwi, and 

 the Bison are disappearing. The northern half of 

 Texel, not long since the chief of European breeding- 

 stations for long-legged birds, is drained and ploughed, 

 and is Eerland ' Eggland ' no longer in anything but 

 name. 



But places are still, under good guidance, to be found 

 where the shadow seems to have stood still, and where 

 as in Prospero's Isle the air in spring and early 

 summer is ' full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs,' as if 

 all the electric bells and flutes in the world had taken 

 flight together, and where the intruding listener's ears 

 are all but boxed with the wings of indignant Peewits 

 and Redshanks. It was in such a spot that we once 

 found ourselves on the 3rd of June. 



We had crossed by Rotterdam and spent an after- 

 noon in the Museum at Leyden, inspecting, under the 

 guidance of Dr. Jentinck, the Director, some of the 

 most precious of the treasures there. A Duck and 

 other birds believed to be unique, or almost unique, 

 examples of extinct species ; the Pigmy Hippopotamus 

 from St. Paul's River; the Banded Bush Buck, un- 

 known until Herr Btitekoffer lately brought it from 

 Liberia, excepting from two imperfect skins one of 

 them made up into a native African hunting-bag 

 from which had been evolved and fairly accurately 



