SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



193 



BIRDS'-NESTING IN TEXEL. 

 By Jac. P. Thysse. 



/~\N the 26th of May, 1894, m Y friend, Mr. 

 ^ Steenhuizen, and I started for the Island of 

 Texel (ante page 62), with the object of obtaining 

 specimens for the show-collection of Dutch Avi- 

 fauna in the Zoological Gardens at Amsterdam. 

 This collection, begun this year, and modelled upon 

 the well-known one in the South Kensington 

 Museum, contains already four magnificent life- 

 like groups of black-headed gulls, cormorants, and 

 blue herons, purple herons and spoonbills, all with 

 nests and eggs and young birds, and in their 

 natural surroundings of reeds and water. The 

 cormorants and blue herons, however, are repre- 

 sented collectively in a tree-top. Altogether this 

 collection, when ultimately completed, will prove 

 of great interest, and no doubt it will aid very 

 effectively in popularising ornithological science 

 among the general public. 



The true interest of this collection is its life-like- 

 ness, which is ensured by imitating the habitual 

 surroundings of the birds, or even by carefully 

 transporting the site of the nest to the museum 

 halls, and preserving it with every means science 

 and ingenuity can suggest. Now Mr. Steenhuizen 

 is ever on the alert for leaves that will not wither, 

 or grass-blades that will not shrink, and as it had 

 occurred to him that on our island, with its 

 variegated soil, nests in suitable surroundings might 

 be met with, an expedition was decided upon. 



Some fifteen years ago some enterprising in- 

 habitants of Texel, with a true Dutch zeal for 

 " landaanwinning " (the obtaining of more land), 

 undertook the draining of a large inlet of the 

 Zuyder Zee on the north-east side of the island. A 

 dyke was constructed and a mill, which pumped 

 the inlet dry in a short time. On examination, 

 however, the soil proved utterly worthless, con- 

 sisting only of bare sand and sour poisoned mud. 

 Only a little part of it was sold, and the rest is 

 lying waste, with a scanty vegetation of halophilous 

 plants and coarse grass — a desolate desert traversed 

 by brackish creeks, with the lonely mill at its 

 north-east extremity. 



As matters stand now there is no chance of 

 ameliorating the soil by any means, so it will 

 remain a waste place for ever, unprofitable to man, 

 but the very place for the wading birds, for 

 hundreds of avocets, oystercatchers, peewits, red- 

 shanks, ruffs, plovers and terns. As peewit eggs 

 form a valuable article of commerce, the right of 

 looking for them is rented every year. Of course 

 this right extends to the reaping of eggs of every 

 species not protected by law. In order to be at 

 our ease I had rented some 400 acres for the 



months of May and June for thirteen shillings. 

 Moreover, we were provided with an extraordinary 

 permission for shooting any birds, game excepted. 

 On a bright May morning we entered our 

 hunting-grounds, guided by the village teacher, a 

 native Texelaar and deeply initiated in all the 

 mysteries of egg-seeking. The day before it had 

 rained all day, and still some mischief was brewing 

 in the south-west. We carried with us our " small 

 trunk," three-bottomed, one yard long and three- 

 quarters of a yard broad and deep, in which the 

 grass-sods containing the nests were to be deposited. 

 It was a clever contrivance of my friend, 

 Steenhuizen, and contained temporarily the gun 

 with a hundred cartridges, a spade, card, screws 

 and sundries, which rendered it anything but 

 light, and procured us some interesting and 

 exhilarating moments when a stile had to be 

 surmounted or when we had to cross a wide ditch 

 on a single shaky plank. We advanced, however, 

 in the name of Science, and arrived safely but 

 tired at a small old battered mill, the centre of 

 that day's operations. In no time, we found 

 several eggs of Sterna hirundo loose on the grass, 

 and very soon a beautiful clutch of the Kentish 

 plover. This bird frequently lays its eggs in a 

 hollow in the sand. Here the hollow was among 

 the grass, and the bird had adorned it with small 

 fragments of shells. It was now running about 

 in the neighbourhood and was ruthlessly killed for 

 identification. At the shot the birds rose every- 

 where, great numbers of avocets and terns, the 

 common and 5. mimita. This latter was con- 

 spicuous by his rapid movements and his angry 

 screeching, an unmistakable "retch! retch!" 

 repeated at short intervals. The avocets have a 

 way of flying straight at the intruder at a height 

 of fifteen or twenty yards, when they will suddenly 

 pull up, as if to scan you attentively, and then 

 suddenly they go off with abroad sweep, crying, not 

 too loud, but very emphatically — "cleet! cleet ! " 

 or, " clut ! clut ! " 



By an unfortunate accident the plover's nest was 

 spoiled, but we soon forgot our disappointment over 

 a beautiful lark's nest, the very thing for a museum, 

 as it aptly illustrated the cleverness with which the 

 birds conceal their nest. It was on one side of a 

 tussock of stiff grass in a hollow, so that it lay 

 completely hidden on three-fourths of its circum- 

 ference. The three eggs it contained were a little 

 incubated. In the course of the same day we found 

 a great many larks' nests, but none of them 

 exceeded the first in picturesqueness. 



A little further on there was a very fine redshank's 



