RUFF. 265 
since the ruffs, unlike any other birds of this family, 
being polygamous, no doubt keep apart from the reeves 
during the winter months; but I remember a ruff, still 
in plain garb, and two reeves being shot on the same 
day at Hickling, on the 26th of March, 1852. On 
the 15th of April, 1864, a fine ruff was shot on a 
ploughed field at Runhall, near Hingham, almost in 
the centre of the county, and three others observed 
with it were said to be very tame. On Breydon, 
Mr. Frere tells me, they are seldom seen in spring, but 
a couple were shot on the ooze in May, 1864, another 
pair during the same month about five years before; 
and three reeves were killed on the beach at Yarmouth, 
on the 19th of May, 1866. These late arrivals appearing 
simultaneously with knots, godwits, and other migrants, 
are evidently foreigners passing on to more northern 
breeding grounds. In the autumn the Breydon gun- 
ners usually find them more plentiful, and one of 
them asserts that he has killed four and five reeves in a 
day, but no doubt some of these would be ruffs without 
frills as well as young birds of the year. Again at 
Blakeney and Salthouse Mr. Dowell says they are most 
frequently seen, though in small numbers, towards 
the end of summer and in autumn, but in the spring 
of 1846 he killed two at Salthouse, and two more 
were shot there in July of the same year. Both in 
August and September I have not unfrequently seen 
young and old birds (the ruffs, of course, without frills) 
in our birdstuffers’ shops, sent up from Yarmouth. 
A reeve killed by Mr. J. E. Harting on the bank of 
have been reeves also, as they “appeared all of the same size.” 
The stomachs of two, he says, “contained the remains of some 
small bronzed-winged beetles and earwigs, also several small sharp 
stones. These stones, felspar and quartz, must have been taken 
into the gizzard at a great distance from this place, and probably 
in a granite district.” 
2M 
