THE SPOONBILL 311 



at this period on the Maas, and here and there in the reclaimed 

 Haarlem Meer. In 1867 Sclater found spoonbills still haunting 

 Nieuerkerk, and about the same time we hear of a colony on 

 Texel ; but in 1877 the Haarlem birds had settled down at Horster 

 Meer, and the breeding-places near the Maas were quite aban- 

 doned. Here they remained till some time between 1881 and 1883, 

 when they migrated to the Naarder Meer, a few miles distant. 

 Attempts to drain this Meer between the years 1883 and 1886 fortu- 

 nately proved unsuccessful, owing to the porosity of the soil, and 

 though for a time the meer was entirely deserted by the spoonbills, 

 they began to return in 1887, and have never been absent in the 

 breeding season since that date. The second colony, which is not 

 nearly so well known, lies in a secluded spot among the dunes of 

 Noord-Holland, not far from the Helder, and probably contains the 

 descendants of the deserted Texel colony. This lagoon is strictly 

 preserved, and probably most of the English occurrences are due to 

 wanderers from this site. It is difficult to form any reliable estimate 

 of the numbers of breeding birds. In 1898 Dr. Sclater estimated the 

 number of breeding pairs at the colony near the Helder at three 

 hundred pairs, while that on the Naarder Meer is much smaller, and 

 probably does not much exceed thirty pairs in number. 



Favier says that they occur at Tangier on migration in March, 

 April, and May, but the first bird observed by Irby near Gibraltar 

 was noted on 9th April, and they reach their breeding quarters in 

 Holland during the same month. In all probability spoonbills pair 

 for life, but of their courtship nothing seems to be recorded. Year 

 after year they return to the same spots to breed, making use of the 

 remains of the old nests of the previous year as a foundation for the 

 new ones. At this time the Naarder Meer is covered with dense beds 

 of dead reeds, 5 or 6 feet high, standing in water varying from 2 or 3 to 

 5 or 6 feet deep, while the green spikes of the fresh growth of reeds pro- 

 ject a foot or so above the water-level. No material is used except 

 the dead reed stems with a few leaves attached, which are brittle 



