RUFF. 575 



flocks, are also seen, and single birds are occasionally killed 

 in winter. Formerly many of the adult birds remained with 

 us during the summer, and bred in the fens of Cambridge- 

 shire, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire. 



Montagu made a tour through Lincolnshire that he might 

 become intimately acquainted with all the history of this 

 singular species that could be obtained. " He found that 

 the birds were much more scarce than they had been before 

 a large tract of the fens was drained and enclosed, and 

 would probably, as agriculture increased, be entirely driven 

 from the island. A few he observes are still found about 

 Crowland, but the north fen near Spalding, and the east and 

 west fens between Boston and Spilsby, are the only parts 

 that appear to produce them with certainty, but by no means 

 plentiful." 



That these birds were formerly very numerous may be 

 inferred from the fact that a fenman told Pennant he 

 once caught six dozen in one morning. The Rev. James F. 

 Dimock wrote me word that some Reeves (the name applied 

 to the feniales) still breed in Cawlish Wash, near Spalding. 

 I have a note of ten dozen of these birds, fatted for the table, 

 coming to Leadenhall market on the same day in the year 

 1824. 



Montagu observes that " the trade of catchin£? Ruffs is 

 confined to a very few persons, and scarcely repaid their 

 trouble and the expense of nets. These people live in ob- 

 scure places on the verge of the fens, and are found out with 

 difficulty, for few, if any, birds are ever bought but by those 

 who make a trade of fattening them for the table. Mr. 

 Towns, the noted feeder at Spalding, assures us his family 

 had been a hundred years in the trade ; that they had sup- 

 plied George the Second and many noble families in the 

 kingdom. He undertook, at the desire of the late Mar- 

 quis of Townsend, when that nobleman was Lord Lieutenant 



