694 SCOLOPACID^. 



tumn, at which time the young birds of the year, in small 

 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 Cam- 

 bridgeshire, 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 observed 

 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 fen-man told Pennant he once 

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

 Dimock wrote me word that some Reeves (the name ap- 

 plied to the females) 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 catching Ruffs 

 is confined to a very few persons, and scarcely repays their 

 trouble and the expense of nets. These people live in 

 obscure 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 supplied George the Second and many noble families 

 in the kingdom. He undertook, at the desire of the late 



