213
Antwerp, Belgium.
1897.
Aug. 5-7.
(No.3).
motionless in a crouching posture with its dark back turned
toward the railroad, they might have been easily mistaken, at
a little distance, for so many lumps of freshly-exposed,
blackish loam, but when, as was frequently the case, they took
flight at the near approach of the train and closing together
wheeled and circled over the fields in a compact flock, the
white on their wings and under parts flashed in the sunlight
and made them conspicuous enough. There were also a few Gold-
en Plover and now and then a bunch of Sandpipers as well as
many small brownish birds some of which I took to be Skylarks
and other Pipits. Swallows were everywhere numerous but I 
saw no Swifts north of the Hague.
 The only Water-hen (Gallinula) which I met with anywhere
in Holland was seen swimming in a canal not far from Haarlem.
  Kestrels are apparently very common in this part of Hol-
land for during each of my two trip between the Hague and
Amsterdam I saw five or six hovering over the fields.
Directly opposite Dordrecht was the only natural marsh
of any extent that I met with in all Holland. It comprised
at least twelve or fifteen acres of unreclaimed land covered
with the densest possible growth of cane-like reeds, six or
seven feet tall, of a dark green colour, and having broad,