88 BRITISH BIRDS. 



and yellow, and in others again white, rust colour, 

 or barred with glossy violet, black and white. 

 They are, however, more nearly alike in other 

 respects: they measure about a foot in length, and 

 two in breadth, and, when first taken, weigh about 

 seven ounces and a half; the female seldom exceeds 

 four. The bill is more than an inch long, black at 

 the tip, and reddish yellow towards the base; the 

 irides are hazel: the whole face is covered with 

 reddish tubercles, or pimples ; wing coverts brown- 

 ish ash; upper parts and the breast generally 

 marked with transverse bars, and the scapulars 

 with roundish-shaped glossy black spots, on a 

 rusty-coloured ground: quills dusky: belly, vent, 

 and tail coverts white: the tail is brown, the four 

 middle feathers barred with black: legs yellow. 

 The male does not acquire the ornament of his neck 

 till the second season, and, before that time, is not 

 easily distinguished from the female, except by 

 being larger. After moulting, at the end of June, 

 he loses his ruff and the red tubercles on his face, 

 and from that time until the spring of the year, he 

 again, in plumage, looks like his mate. 



These birds leave Great Britain in the winter, 

 and are then supposed to associate with others of 

 the Tringa genus, among which they are no longer 

 recognised as the Ruff and Reeve. In the Spring, 

 as soon as they arrive again in England, and take 

 up their abode in the fens where they were bred, 

 each of the males (of which there appears to be a 

 much greater number than of females) immediately 

 fixes upon a particular dry or grassy spot in the 

 marsh, about which he runs, until it is trodden 

 bare : to this spot it appears he wishes to invite the 



