FIGHTING RUFF. 
lis 
would in the open air ; and if another invades its 
circle a battle ensues. A whole roomful of them may- 
be set into fierce contest by compelling them to shift 
their stations ; but, after the cause has subsided, they 
resume their circles and become pacific. In confine- 
ment they do not lose their pugnacious disposition ; 
and if a basin of bread and milk, or boiled wheat, is set 
before them, it is instantly contended for, and they 
would starve in the midst of plenty, if several dishes 
of food were not placed among them, at a distance 
from each other. Montagu observes of some that he 
kept in confinement, that the males paid no atten- 
tion to the Reeves, except to drive them from their 
food ; and never attempted to dispute with any other 
species, but would feed out of the same dish with 
Land Rails and other birds confined with them, in 
perfect amity. 
These birds are highly esteemed as a most deli- 
cious dish, and are sought after with great eagerness 
by the fowlers who live by catching them : but before 
they are offered for sale they are generally put up to 
fatten for about a fortnight, and are, during that 
time, fed with boiled wheat, and bread and milk 
mixed with hemp-seed ; by this mode of treatment 
they speedily become very fat, and are often sold for 
a high price : they are dressed after the same manner 
as the Woodcock. 
They are birds of passage ; and arrive in the fens 
of Lincolnshire, the Isle of Ely, and the East Riding 
of Yorkshire, in the spring, in great numbers ; and 
about the beginning of May the female forms her 
nest on a clump, in the most swampy parts of the 
V. XII. p. I. 8 
