THE RUFF AND REEVE 295 



step upon her before she will budge, while at others she 

 runs off her nest like a duck, disappearing in the stuff, and 

 flying up some considerable distance away, the ruff generally 

 keeps somewhere in the neighbourhood of his harem ; and 

 you must watch him if you wish to discover the eggs watch 

 his " trams" or "workings," in the early dawn, and look 

 carefully over his trail, and if you find the eggs, leave 

 them. 



And when the chicks are hatched, he sheds his fine collar, 

 and I believe goes down to the beach or mudflats, leaving 

 his wife and family " to do for themselves ; " the young birds 

 creeping about the stuff, following their mothers, and eating 

 insects from the moist grasses, as do the " stints," chiefly 

 little grasshoppers. And indeed the reeves do not seem too 

 intelligent, for an experimental old fenman, who wished them 

 to return year after year to the same hill, was in the habit of 

 lifting their eggs and replacing them by the eggs of the red- 

 shank, and he avers they always brought the young red-legs 

 up, and didn't know but what they were their own young. 

 He once turned the tables, and the red-leg brought the young 

 ruffs and reeves up. This same old fenman scouts the idea 

 of their fighting; " their collars be tew fine for that," he says 

 with a knowing twinkle. 



And all those tasks are performed in silence never a 

 sound is heard ; and such is the consensus of testimony 

 amongst the fenmen : the mysterious bird seems to be like 

 the monks, to the end of showing their collars once a year 

 and producing more ruffs and reeves. 



And when the ditches are gay with red-shield-seeded 

 water-docks, and the marshes are white with fringes of wild 

 celery, and the fields on the upland bright with scarlet 

 poppies, and the river walls decorated with carved thistles 

 and the purple blooms of loosestrife, and the October days 

 kill off the insects, the reeves and their families leave us 

 to the mercy of frigid winter perhaps to dream of these 

 sphinx-like birds : whose silence, coquetry, dress, poly- 



