MACHETES PUGNAX. 187 
before I reached the nest, but settled almost immediately on the flat 
rushy part. I fired, and it ran, when I gave it the second barrel and 
it fell dead. A short time before, while waiting, I had seen several 
little flights of two or three Ruffs, and watched them with my glass 
as they alighted. I saw two spread their ruffs and run at each other 
like fighting cocks. They are white under the wing and fly rather 
like Pigeons, shewing thickish necks. Early in the afternoon I had, 
with my glass, watched a Reeve which also Theodore recognized. 
Two or three days ago we found a Reeve’s nest with the eggs very 
hard sat upon, but they were all accidentally trodden upon. These 
eggs had formed young, but so that it was possible to blow them 
through holes of moderate size. The nest was made of short bits of 
grass and so forth, in one of the belts of ground intersecting the 
marsh, deep and like the nests of Jack Snipe and other such birds. 
§ 388]. Zhree.—Kaaressuando, 19-20 June, 1853. “J. W.” 
These are three of the four which I found on a low island in a lake 
near Kaaressuando, on the night of 19-20 June, during a thunder- 
storm. I flushed the hen and afterwards snared her with horsehair 
nooses stuck round a hoop. Her yellow legs, short beak, browny 
throat, and chequered back were at a glance decisive of the species. 
One toe as well as her neck being caught, she fell into the water. 
When released from the snare, she alighted after flying a short 
distance. 
§ 3882. Zwo.—Kaaressuando, June, 1853. 
Supposed by Ake Engelmark, the priest’s son, who found them, 
to be Suokulainen, that is Reeve, as they apparently are. The bird 
is abundant here, and much snared. The other eggs were broken, 
these a day or two incubated. 
§ 3883. Zwo.—Muonioniska, June, 1854. 
Seem to be Reeve’s: brought by Lantas Johan Matthias on or 
about the last day of June: the eggs quite fresh and newly found in 
Talvela-hu-uoma. 
(After his second summer's experience Mr. Wolley wrote to Mr. Hewitson, 
27 November, 1854, of the species as follows. | 
The Ruff, ike many other fine gentlemen, takes much more trouble 
