248 THE RUFF AND REEVE. 



lose their sexual appendage when the breeding season 

 is over. The ruff and the reeve are taken in nets 

 ahout thirty or forty yards in length. In the Isle of 

 Ely and the Lincolnshire fens they were formerly 

 prodigiously abundant. They would arrive about the 

 end of April, and continue till the latter days of 

 August. These nets are supported by sticks, " at an 

 angle of forty-five degrees," placed upon dry grounds, 

 or very low watered ones, not far from reeds. Here 

 the fowler conceals himself, and the birds are enticed 

 by stale or stuffed birds to come under the nets. As 

 soon as he perceives the success of his artifice, he 

 pulls a string, they are enclosed ; and often godwits, 

 grebes, knots, and plovers, share the fate of the ruff 

 and reeve. The mode of fattening the latter for the 

 table is by stuffing with boiled wheat, hemp-seed, 

 sugar, or bread and milk. During the process they 

 are kept in a dark room, where the very acme of their 

 fatness is to be observed, or they are apt to fall away 

 in a day or two. If ever so little light is let into 

 their dark prisons, these little creatures immediately 

 do battle with each other ; nor will they leave off 

 while life is left. " This died for love, and that for 

 glory," may the disconsolate fattener say, as he picks 

 up the dead bodies, and retires with the slain. 



Colonel Montague thus describes their combats in 

 a wild state : "In the spring the ruffs hill, as it is 

 termed, that is, they assemble upon a rising spot of 

 ground, contiguous to where the species prepare to 

 deposit their eggs ; then they take their stand at a 



