RUFF. 647 



iii winter. Formerly many of the adult birds remained 

 with us during the summer, and bred in the fens of Cam- 

 bridgeshire, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire. 



Montagu made a tour through Lincolnshire that he might 

 become intimately acquainted with all the history of this 

 singular species that could be obtained. " He found that 

 the birds were much more scarce than they had been before 

 a large tract of the fens was drained and enclosed, and 

 would probably, as agriculture increased, be entirely driven 

 from the island. A few he observed are still found about 

 Crowland, but the north fen near Spalding, and the east and 

 west fens between Boston and Spilsby, are the only parts 

 that appear to produce them with certainty, but by no 

 means plentiful." 



That these birds were formerly very numerous may be 

 inferred from the fact that a fenman told Pennant he once 

 caught six dozen in one morning. The Rev. James F. 

 Dimock wrote me word that some Reeves (the name ap- 

 plied to the females) still breed in Cawlish Wash, near 

 Spalding. I have a note of ten dozen of these birds, fatted 

 for the table, coming to Leadenhall market on the same 

 day in the year 1824. 



Montagu observes that " the trade of catching Ruffs is 

 confined to a very few persons, and scarcely repaid their 

 trouble and the expense of nets. These people live in ob- 

 scure places on the verge of the fens, and are found out 

 with difficulty, for few, if any, birds are ever bought but by 

 those who make a trade of fattening them for the table. 

 Mr. Towns, the noted feeder at Spalding, assures us his 

 family had been a hundred years in the trade ; that they 

 had supplied George the Second and many noble families 

 in the kingdom. He undertook, at the desire of the late 

 Marquis of Townsend, when that nobleman was Lord 



