80 IHE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



and the methods formerly employed for catching and 

 fattening them for market in the Lincolnshire fens, 

 given by Colonel Montagu in Ms ' Ornithological 

 Dictionary' (1813), and quoted in the 4th edition of 

 Yarrell ; it appears from this account that even in 

 the early part of the present century Ruff-catching 

 " hardly repaid the trouble and the expense of nets," 

 although the fattened birds seem always to have 

 commanded long prices. The late Lord Exeter 

 informed me that on the occasion of Her Majesty's 

 visit to Burghley in 1844, he had very great difficulty 

 in procuring any of these birds from Crowland, and 

 believed that the few sent thence for the table were 

 birds that had been kept as decoys ; on the other 

 hand I have been assured by a friend whose mother 

 was a native of Lincolnshire, that so well known 

 were the habits of this bird in that county that he 

 well remembers in his early boyhood the frequent 

 maternal reproof for infantine family squabbles having 

 been conveyed in the words " you children must not 

 fight like Ruffs." These birds made their appearance 

 on our eastern coasts early in April in small flocks, 

 the males always arriving before the females ; in a 

 short time they resorted to their breeding-haunts, 

 and for some days constant battles raged between the 

 male birds on what were locally known as "hills," 

 slight elevations or mounds in the marsh, frequented 

 year after year and well known to the fenmen, I 

 copy from the 4th edition of Yarrell the following 

 account of nest and eggs of this species : " The nest 

 is placed in a tussock, generally in the wettest part 

 of a swamp, and the eggs are three or four in number; 

 of a pale green or olive colour, blotched and spotted 

 with brown; the average measurements are 1"8 by 



