178 c. and h. Candler’s notes from the Netherlands. 
Fatherland, breeding every year, not only in the places referred to (in the 
polder of Wolle Foppen) but also, as I have been informed on good 
authority, here and there along the Haarlem Meer, as well as on the 
Bergsclie Veld, and in one and another of the channels of the river 
Merwede, in the most solitary spots among the willow plantations there 
abounding.”* 
From the time of Nozeman to the date of Professor Schlegel’s 
book on the ‘ Fauna of the Netherlands,’ we have no information 
as to the status of the Spoonbill in Holland ; but as the work of 
reclamation progressed slowly until well into the present century, 
we may infer that the decrease in the number of the birds breeding 
in the country was very gradual. Speaking of the distribution of 
the Spoonbill in his time, Schlegel says : — 
“ In our land it is met with breeding generally at or near the mouths of 
great rivers; as in the Biesbosch, at Nieuwerkerk, on the Ijssel, and in the 
marsh-pools about the island of Rozenburg, at the mouth of the Maas. 
Thence they wander, generally in late summer, united in small parties or 
sometimes in large flocks, to other marshy tracts, or pools where drainage 
work is in progress, and the bird is then very often seen on the ooze of the 
Zealand streams, and at the Ilelder, sometimes also here and there further 
inland.f 
Of the three breeding-places known to Schlegel, two are identical 
with stations mentioned by Nozeman; for the Merwede, as the 
broad reach of the Maas above Dordrecht is locally called, is the 
northern boundary of that maze of channels which, with the 
numberless involved islands, is known by the general name of the 
Biesbosch. :{; From the other two localities given by Nozeman, the 
birds appear to have disappeared. Besides the breeding-places 
already mentioned, there is little doubt that there were many 
others of which no record now remains. We are informed, for 
* ‘ Nederlandsche Vogelen.’ By Cornelius Nozeman. Yol. ii. p. 171. 
Amsterdam, 1789. A splendid work, in three folio volumes, illustrated with 
coloured plates, many of which are excellent (e.g. that of the Black-tailed 
Godwit, of which the specific name belgica is based upon Nozeman’s plate 
and description). 
f‘ Fauna van Nederland, Vogels.’ By H. Schlegel. Leiden, 1854—8, 
p. 391. 
X Literally “ Reed-Forest,” a large tract of land submerged by the famous 
inundation of 1421. Drainage has, in recent years, quite altered the 
character of this once lonely and desolate region. 
