Identifier: picturesofbirdli00lodg (find matches)
Title: Pictures of bird life : on woodland meadow, mountain and marsh
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Lodge, R. B
Subjects: Birds -- Pictorial works
Publisher: London : S. H. Bousfield
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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d almost worthless, and after several thousandpounds had been spent the place was allowed to revertinto its original state, and the Spoonbills and other featheredinhabitants returned to find shelter and safety once more inthe reed-beds of this most interesting meer. It is indeed a most charming place for an ornithologist—full of lasting interest and delight, where he can revel inthe sight of many banished birds nesting in large numbersundisturbed and immolested. Three ^isits made to this spothave each been more enjoyable than the one before, and Ihope to be able to revisit at some future day the scenesof so much pleasure. The birds are not by any means the only inhabitants ofthis place. It is full of fish. Inuiiense pike, great, fat,slimy tench, red-finned roach, and eels abound in its deepwaters, and constitute a source of profit to the lessee, whoemploys a fisherman to protect his rights, and to net andbring to market his captures. The fish are caught mostly in drum-nets placed in
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Young Spoonbill (Plataka hucorodia). Bird Life in Dutch Marshes 231 narrow clianiiels cut in tlie reeds, and as soon as caiiohtthey iire all placed in a stew-pond at the back of thekeepers house. It is a sight, on the eve of market day, tosee tills steAV emptied by means of an innnense net raisedby the united efforts of four or five stout Dutchmen. Asit nears the surface, it is seen to contain a solid mass offish struggling and kicking, ihen they are picked out bylarge landing-nets, and placed in \ arious receptacles accordingto kind. The first bird to be seen, as one leaves the keeperscottage for the • nicer in a flat-bottomed punt, is probably aBlack Tern, sitting on one of the stakes of the drum-nets,or skimming o^er the surface of the water after dragon-flies.Tliis bird takes the place of the Swallows, which are scarce,and, so they say, decreasing in numbers every year. Thenas one progresses Coots are heard, plunging and clankingamid the reeds on each side, and presently a brown

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