MACHETES PUGNAX. 193 
after he had seen the Reeve fly up, near where he afterwards found the nest, 
she settled down and was joined by a Ruff with a white ruff. He was then 
convinced there was a nest, and after closely walking the ground for about two 
hours he found it. It was on the spot just where we had looked on the 31st 
of May, and I must have walked a few yards from it. Nudd said the nest was 
much concealed, and there was a sort of run under the grass made by the bird. 
We then set off in the boat, and soon saw the boy on the watch, so we merely 
poled along the shore, Nudd pointing out to me exactly where to look, and 
when within seventy yards of the place, and quite opposite to it, I saw the 
bird rise. She flew low at first, after the manner of a Rail, and her tail had a 
very narrow appearance, as if the feathers were drawn inwards, and not spread 
out as they generally are when a bird rises from the ground. We poled on 
some bit further, and then landed on a wall, and walked back towards the 
nest. The boy poled his boat exactly opposite to where the nest was and 
landed. I think he went to it, but Nudd thought not. He then came to us 
and told us there was a Reeve’s nest there, which his grandfather had found, 
and that no one was allowed to go on the ground. AsIdid not want to get 
anyone into trouble, I reluctantly came away. Nudd shewed me the two eggs 
he had already taken. They were of a very dark greenish brown, with deep 
green blotches and spots.” 
As my brother was coming away he met Mr. A. H. Evans, who at once 
went to the nest with Nudd, who had found it for him, and brought away the 
remaining two eggs. The next day he revisited the nest and found the bird 
upon it, though empty. He then put in it two Redshank's eggs, on which the 
bird continued to sit up to the time of his departure three days later, as he 
subsequently told my brother, when giving him, as he kindly did, the two 
egas entered above. “He did not know whether they were taken by Nudd 
or by himself, as he mixed all four together. He went over all the likely 
eround in the neighbourhood of the Broad, but did not see another Reeve, 
and thinks that those I saw were either shot or had left. It was notorious all 
over the country that they were there, and they were much lvoked after.” 
The next year Nudd told my brother that the Reeve’s nest in which the 
Redshank’s eggs were placed was mown over before they were hatched. ] 
[§ 3916. Zhree.—Norfolk? From the late Mr. Scales’s 
Collection, 1885. 
These are obviously very old specimens, inscribed by Mr. Scales in ink 
“ Reeve,” and were most likely taken in Norfolk, as he would hardly have 
been at the trouble of bringing from Holland eggs which he could in his time 
have easily obtained in his own neighbourhood, for from 1808 to 1812 he lived 
at Halvergate, near Acle, on the borders of the Broad-country (cf. Trans. Norf. 
& Norw. Nat. Soe. iy. p. 84). Unfortunately two of them are very seriously 
damaged. } 
NIE i. 10) 
