180 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



made a wonderful spectacle, their time, when not thus occupied, 

 being spent in pressing about the Eeeves, and eagerly courting 

 them — which of the two occupied the greater part of it I am 

 unable to say. The Eeeves, for their part, seemed just as eager, 

 in their way. If the Buffs courted, they, as evidently, came 

 there to be courted, as they, from time to time, testified. How 

 many Ruffs paired, exclusive of the blue and the brown one, I 

 cannot say for certain, but I did not distinctly see more than 

 four, and should doubt if more than six did. But things glowed 

 more—" the sweet influences of the Pleiades," it was evident, 

 were more felt, Venus reigned more supreme than on any former 

 occasion. Yet this was in the very early dawn, the grass all frosted 

 and hung with dew, whilst a pure white mist curled up to a few feet 

 above it, and there hung, presenting a most beautiful appearance, 

 as the sun's first rays — sent out before him — began to illuminate 

 the delicate, filmy sea. Holland was Holland no longer, but a 

 very flat fairy-land, in which danced houses and windmills. And 

 it was in this chill mist and frostiness of the first morning — 4, 

 perhaps — that nuptial joys were at their height. This, of course, 

 — though the mist was in partial abeyance over the bare, 

 trampled space occupied by the birds — yet made it difficult to 

 follow individual happenings closely, and when I have said that 

 certain Ruffs, besides the two Lotharios, now paired with certain 

 Reeves, I have said all I can say with certainty. Six or perhaps 

 eight others may have done so, but it did not strike me as so 

 many. Three or four is all I can vouch for. 



During this early period neither the brown nor the blue Ruff 

 had been very much occupied, and both, for the most part, had 

 kept their places. Then, as the light lightened and observation 

 grew easy, a little troop of Reeves pressed down, as usual, upon 

 them, and began to make court, to the brown one especially. 

 They pressed upon him, and as he lay, quiescent, after the first 

 responses, either pecked him gently about the head or neck, 

 or, crouching in front of him, walked backwards, and claimed 

 his attention by a still more suggestive contact. Upon these 

 various hints he " spake " a good many times, but so eager were 

 the hens that one would sometimes push another out of the way, 

 and in several instances, instead of waiting, they paired uni- 

 sexually, whilst once there was the strange sight of Ruff and 



