120 BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 



pulation before it can be swallowed; the Godwit's head 

 is thrown backwards, and the mandibles are rapidly 

 worked till the worm becomes properly adjusted, when 

 down it goes, the neck perceptibly swelling and thick- 

 ening in the descent; then there is a satisfied smack of 

 the mandibles, and the search recommences. Whim- 

 brel feed by picking out various small crustaceans from 

 the tidal pools, also by boring the flats. This they 

 do, however, far more circumspectly than the Godwits, 

 not probing in the same hap-hazard manner, but 

 walking discreetly some distance between the borings, 

 and then, standing still, plunge their long scythe-like 

 bill deep into the ooze, as if aware of exactly the 

 proper place where their prey lie concealed. 



177. MACHETES PUGNAX (Linnaeus). Ruff (male), 

 Reeve (female). 



The Ruff and Reeve, formerly so abundant in Lin- 

 colnshire, where its capture and feeding for the 

 London market was a regular trade *, is now only 

 known as a bird of passage, lingering for a few weeks 

 or days in small numbers in the neighbourhood of its 

 old haunts during the period of the spring and autumn 

 migrations. Is almost a regular autumn, but only 

 an occasional spring, visitant to this district. 



* Mr. Pennant remarks : " These birds are found in Lincoln- 

 shire, the Isle of Ely, and in the East Kiding of Yorkshire, 

 where they are taken in nets, and fattened for the table, with 

 bread and milk, hempseed, and sometimes boiled wheat ; but if 



