The males are sometimes called Fighters, on account of their quarrelsome disposition. It is a bird of passage, and arrives in the fens of Lincolnshire, and other similar places, in the spring. Mr. Pennant tells us, that in the course of a single morning more than six dozen have been caught in one net, and that a fowler has been known to catch between forty and fifty dozen in a season.
The female is called a Reeve, and its flesh is thought a great delicacy for the table. They are smaller than the cocks, and their feathers undergo no change. The Ruff and Reeve are taken in nets. They used to be seen in vast numbers in many parts of England, especially in the Isle of Ely and the Lincolnshire fens. The improvements in drainage and cultivation that have been made during the present century have deprived these birds of their accustomed haunts, and they are no longer common. A writer of the last century said he had seen the ground so covered with the nests and eggs of Plovers and Reeves that “one could scarce take a step without stepping on them.” They are now most common on the shores of southern Scotland and of Northumberland.
Reeves are fattened for the table by feeding them on boiled rice or wheat, bread and milk, hemp seed, &c. They are obliged to be kept in a dark room during the process, as the least gleam of light is the signal for a furious battle.