SHOOTING THE GREBE, THE CURLEW. 237 



bridgeshire, and thence northward. So soon as they 

 see a Reeve, the Ruffs begin to fight ; and desperate 

 little fellows they are. " The sporting history of these 

 birds," Elaine tells us, " was formerly a very interest- 

 ing subject, and collected together numbers of gentry : 

 some to watch their habits, some to shoot them, 

 more to see them netted, and many more to eat 

 them" (by all accounts, the best fun of any). Their 

 price was somewhere about two guineas a dozen by 

 Apicius costly feeding ? but that was after they had 

 been stuffed with milk, hempseed, boiled wheat, 

 sugar, and all sorts of dainties. Shooting them is 

 very dull sport ; they flush lazily, and a tailor might 

 bring them down with his goose. 



THE GREBE. 



This is a scion of the diver family, and ducks 

 more adroitly than any of his seed or generation. 

 It seems to anticipate the flash of a gun ; so that 

 shooting at them will be conceived a nice operation. 

 The large grebes Colonel Hawker thinks worth shoot- 

 ing for sake of their skins, "which -make excellent 

 tippets and travelling caps." 



THE CURLEW. 



The true system of shooting this bird, is always to 

 have a second gun in reserve if double, so much the 

 better ; because, if you wing him, he makes a great 

 disturbance, and brings all his mates about you. You 

 will get much nearer them than you did to the indi- 



