98 
BRITISH BIRDS. 
a ftufFed Reeve, or what is called a Jlale hird^ which 
is placed in fome fuitable fpot for that purpofe. 
% The Ruff is highly efteemed as a moll delicious 
dilh, and is fought after with great eagernefs by the 
fowlers who live by catching them and other fen 
birds, for the markets of the metropolis, &c. Be- 
fore they are offered for fale, they are commonly 
put up to feed for about a fortnight, and are during 
that time fed with boiled wheat, and bread and 
milk mixed with hempfeed, to which fugar is 
fometimes added: by this mode of treatment they 
become very fat, and are often fold as high as two 
fhillings and fixpence each. * They are cooked in 
the fame manner as the Woodcock. 
The female, in the beginning of May, makes 
her nefl: in a dry tuft of grafs, in the fens, and lays 
four white eggs, marked with rufly fpots. 
Thefe bird^ are common in the fummer feafon in 
the fens of Denmark, Sweden, and Ruffia, and are 
alfo found in other more northern regions, even as 
far as Iceland. 
In a note communicated by the late George Allan, Efq. 
of the Grange, near Darlington, he fays, “ I dined at the 
George Inn, Coney-ftreet, York, Augufl i8, 1794, (the 
race week) where four Ruffs made one of the dilhes at the 
table, which, in the bill, were feparatcly charged fixteen (hil- 
lings,’’ 
