RUFF. 205 



since the ruffs, unlike any other birds of this family, 

 being polygamous, no doubt keep apart from the reeves 

 during the winter months ; but I remember a ruff, still 

 in plain garb, and two reeves being shot on the same 

 day at Hickling, on the 26th of March, 1852. On 

 the 15th of April, 1864, a fine ruff was shot on a 

 ploughed field at Runhall, near Hingham, almost in 

 the centre of the county, and three others observed 

 with it were said to be very tame. On Breydon, 

 Mr. Frere tells me, they are seldom seen in spring, but 

 a couple were shot on the ooze in May, 1864, another 

 pair during the same month about five years before; 

 and three reeves were killed on the beach at Yarmouth, 

 on the 19th of May, 1866. These late arrivals appearing 

 simultaneously with knots, god wits, and other migrants, 

 are evidently foreigners passing on to more northern 

 breeding grounds. In the autumn the Breydon gun- 

 ners usually find them more plentiful, and one of 

 them asserts that he has killed four and five reeves in a 

 day, but no doubt some of these would be ruffs without 

 frills as well as young birds of the year. Again at 

 Blakeney and Salthouse Mr. Dowell says they are most 

 frequently seen, though in small numbers, towards 

 the end of summer and in autumn, but in the spring 

 of 1846 he killed two at Salthouse, and two more 

 were shot there in July of the same year. Both in 

 August and September I have not unfrequently seen 

 young and old birds (the ruffs, of course, without frills) 

 in our birdstuffers' shops, sent up from Yarmouth. 

 A reeve killed by Mr. J. E. Harting on the bank of 



liave been reeves also, as they "appeared all of the same size." 

 The stomachs of two, he says, " contained the remains of some 

 small bronzed-winged beetles and earwigs, also several small sharp 

 stones. These stones, felspar and quartz, must have been taken 

 into the gizzard at a great distance from this place, and probably 

 in a granite district." 

 2M 



