Oxen and Kine . 
259 
In the early works on diet and housekeeping, a bird 
called a brew, or brewe, frequently appears, 
. \ • , A i WhimTbrel. 
generally m close proximity to the curlew. 
The word Brew has by some writers been explained to 
mean the Whimbrel, a bird sometimes called, from its 
resemblance to the last-named species, the Half-curlew or 
Jack-curlew. 
According to Mr. Stevenson (Birds of Norfolk ), the 
word spowe, which frequently occurs in the early lists 
of birds for the table, was also a name given to the 
whimbrel. In the L’Estrange Accounts spowes are 
nearly always mentioned in connexion with other shore 
birds, such as knots, ring-dotterels, and redshanks. By 
Bishop Stanley the word spowe is considered to mean 
sparrow.* 
The name given to the whimbrel in the Shetland 
Islands is the tang-whaap, or small curlew. 
The Ruff and Reeve were sometimes called Oxen and 
Kine. The male is during the spring months Buff and 
adorned with a handsome ruff of feathers Reeve, 
round its neck, which it can erect or depress at pleasure. 
Sir Thomas Browne notices another peculiarity of this 
bird, which is that no two specimens are taken exactly 
similar in colour:— 
“ j Ruffe, a marsh bird of the greatest variety of colour; every one 
therein somewhat varying from, other. The female is called a reeve , 
without any raff about the neck, lesser than the other, and hardly to 
be got. They abound mostly in Marshland.” (Yol. iv. p. 319.) 
The Knot, Gnat-snap, or Canute’s bird, was esteemed a 
.great delicacy. It was found in large numbers 
<at the mouth of tidal rivers. Sir Thomas 
Browne writes 
“The gnat, or knot, a small bird, which, taken with nets, 
grow excessively fat, being mewed and fed with corn. A candle 
* See page 201. 
