THE RUFF. 
199 
cry of -the first female he hears dispels his fears, and re- 
awakens his courage, and he renews the conflict if another 
opponent appears. These skirmishes are repeated every 
morning and evening till their departure, in May. 
As soon as the Reeves begin to lay, both those and their 
mates lay aside their wildness and desire of hostility, so 
that the whole may be caught with little effort. As the 
attachment of the females to their charge increases, with 
the progress of incubation, they become still more embold- 
ened in its defence. At length, the period of excitement 
subsiding, the males, dropping their nuptial plumage, sink 
into tame and undistinguishable wanderers, and seceding 
from the Reeves and their brood, depart to their hybernal 
seclusion, in some distant country. 
The females, associated in numbers, commence laying 
about the first or second week in May, and the young appear 
early in June. The nest is formed of grass, in a tussock 
of the same, in the most swampy part of the marsh. The 
eggs, four in number, very like those of the snipe, as well 
as the nest, are however larger, of a pale greenish hue, with 
a great number of small spots and points off dusky and 
brown. The Reeve is so remarkably attached to her eggs, 
that after being caught on the nest and carried some dis- 
tance, on being liberated, she went again to her eggs, as if 
nothing had molested her. Indeed the attachment and cou- 
rage of the female for her young, seem scarcely less re- 
markable than the pugnacious valour of the Ruff. 
