242 SKETCHES OF BIRD LIFE. 



old country, and are shot and chronicled as 

 rare ! 



We might allude to the Spoonbill and Avocet, 

 which formerly bred in our fens, 1 and to one or two 

 other species which are now only occasional visit- 

 ants where once they were plentiful. But we will 

 confine our attention for the present to one bird 

 in particular, which may be now almost placed in 

 the same catalogue the Ruff, and his mate, the 

 Reeve. 



A most singular bird this is. Belonging to the 

 same great group which comprises the Snipes and 

 Sandpipers (Scolopax, Tringa, and Totanus), it differs 

 remarkably from them all in many respects. Old 

 naturalists placed it among the Tringce, but as the 

 species became better known, it was found that, un- 

 like any other wading bird, the males were poly- 

 gamous, and fought for possession of the females ; 

 differed from each other in colour; were a third 



1 Sir Thomas Browne, writing two centuries ago, remarked that 

 the Spoonbill then nested in Norfolk and Suffolk (see his Works, 

 Wilkin's Ed., iv. p. 315), as it did also in Sussex, in Queen Elizabeth's 

 time (see Zoologist, 1877, p. 425). The last eggs of the Avocet which 

 are recorded to have been taken in England were obtained five-and- 

 thirty years ago at the mouth of the Humber. 



