IN DUTCH WATER MEADOWS 201 



the agent, who, with the kindness almost invariably 

 shown by the Dutch to strangers, had given us leave 

 to wander at will over the land under his charge. 



It was a ' polder,' a wide tract comparatively lately 

 reclaimed, intersected in every direction by ditches at 

 right angles ; in some parts dry and cultivated, in others, 

 on the seaside especially, still in a half swampy state. 



It was here, where the deep green of the grass was in 

 some places broken with sandy strips and muddy inlets, 

 and hi others bright with thrift and white and yellow 

 blossoms of different kinds, that the birds and nests of 

 which we were in search were most plentiful. The air 

 was filled and the marsh and meadows alive with noisy 

 Redshanks and fairy-like Terns, the ' Common ' and the 

 ' Lesser.' Oyster-catchers, affected with the usual low 

 spirits of their race, lolled about in disconsolate atti- 

 tudes, or rose with a melancholy piping as we came 

 too near them; and, where the grass gave place to 

 pale-coloured mud, Kentish Plovers, elsewhere rare, 

 looking more like little balls of living sand than birds, 

 trundled themselves at a great pace out of our way 

 along the water's margin. 



For these and many others, any of which would else- 

 where have been worth a special pilgrimage to see, we 

 had no eyes to spare. 



We were in one of the chief of the few remaining 

 summer-homes in Western Europe of the Avocet, once 

 common, now practically extinct in England. 



One of the last of our old-established colonies was at 

 Salthouse, on the Norfolk coast, and was, according to 



