Gh'eat Bustard, Ruff and Reerc, Black-tailed Godwit 85 



several weeks. Mr Frederick Godman and the late Mr Anthony 

 Hamond saw it more than once. The people would not let it 

 alone, and it was shot at several times. My brother Edward, 

 Mr Salvin and I, went to the place, but the bird had left. 

 We, however, saw its footmarks in a field of cole-seed, and 

 found some feathers one of which I now have." 



12. Machetes pugnax (Linn.). Ruff and Reeve. 



The Ruff, and its consort the Reeve, were abundant in the 

 marshy districts of the east of England until a comparatively 

 recent date, and were by no means unknown in suitable places 

 elsewhere south of the Border. The diminution in the number 

 of the birds breeding with us has been so gradual that little 

 can be said except that they have become much scarcer since 

 the beginning of the nineteenth century owing to improved 

 systems of drainage, but an occasional nest has been found 

 in Norfolk or Lincolnshire almost up to the present time, and 

 it is by no means certain "that one or two pairs do not still 

 breed annually in the former county. The 'hilling' of the 

 polygamous males, that is, their practice of congregating on 

 dry hillocks in the marshes to spar bill to bill with expanded 

 ruffs and ruffled feathers for the possession of the females, 

 has been so well described by Montagu and other writers on 

 British birds that it needs no repetition here; while the 

 method of netting both sexes, with or without the use of 

 decoys, is equally familiar to most readers. Large numbers 

 of these migratory birds used to be taken annually and 

 fattened for the market on bread and milk or boiled wheat. 



13. Limosa belgica (J. F. Gmelin). Black- tailed Godwit. 



Though much rarer than the preceding species this Godwit 

 used to breed in certain favoured localities in Cambridgeshire, 

 Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk until the beginning of 

 the nineteenth century ; but, according to the Rev. L. Jenyns, 

 it had become scarce by 1825, while the last nests appear to 



