264 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



Two, evidently fresh laid, were shown me on the 16th 

 of May, and four others, but slightly sat upon, on the 

 6th of June. I have also notes of some taken in other 

 seasons during the latter month.* As long since as 

 1824, Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear attributed the 

 growing scarcity of this species in the Norfolk marshes 

 to birds and eggs being alike eagerly sought after for the 

 London market, and both, of course, for edible pur- 

 poses. A curious instance of the attachment of the 

 female for her eggs is also given by the same authors, 

 who state that a reeve was caught on her nest by the 

 warrener's boy at Winterton, in 1817, and carried by 

 him to his master, who ordered her to be set at liberty ; 

 the next day she was found on her nest again. 



As to the date of the appearance of these birds, in 

 spring, Mr. Fisher, in recording " the times of arrival of 

 some of the summer birds of passage at Yarmouth in 

 1843" ("Zoologist," p. 248), gives the 25th of March as 

 the first appearance of reeves, but adds, " I saw no ruffs 

 for some days afterwards ; may they not arrive sepa- 

 rately, the reeves first?" f This is most probably the case, 



* According to Montagu the " reeves begin laying their eggs 

 the first or second week in May," and he had found their nests 

 with young " as early as the 3rd of June." * * * When the 

 reeves begin to lay, both those and the ruffs are least shy and so 

 easily caught that a fowler assured him " he could with certainty 

 take every bird on the fen in the season.'* And no doubt this 

 system of making "two seasons," as adopted by some fen-men, thus 

 verifying, as our author says, "the fable of the goose and the 

 golden eggs," was the main cause of their diminished numbers ; 

 whilst after all, the birds taken in spring " frequently pine and 

 will not readily fatten." 



f In the "Zoologist" for 1868 (p. 1284), Mr. Cordeaux states that 

 on the 20th May he saw " eight birds, like large sandpipers, feeding 

 in a fifty acre grass field, adjoining the Humber." Of these, by a 

 very long cross shot, he killed three, which all proved to be reeves 

 in good condition and plumage, and the remainder he believes to 



