In winter they usually continue near marshy grounds, concealed among rushes and thick herbage; but, during severe frosts, they resort to sheltered springs, unfrozen boggy places, or any open streams of water. In summer they disperse throughout the country, and are occasionally found even among the highest mountains. When roused by the sportsman they utter a feeble whistle, and generally fly off, against the wind, in a zigzag direction. Snipes are fattest and in best season in November and December.
These birds feed on small worms, slugs, and insects. They form their nests of dried grass and feathers, in concealed and inaccessible parts of marshes, and have each four eggs of a dirty olive colour marked with dusky spots.
177. The RUFF and REEVE (Tringa pugnax, Fig. 46) are the male and female of a species of sandpiper, which have very varied plumage, the face coloured with yellow pimples, the three lateral tail feathers without spots, and the covert feathers of the wings brown, inclining to ash-colour.
The males, or ruffs, have, round their heads, after they are twelve months old, a very singular arrangement of long feathers, which drop off every year at the season of moulting. The female, or reeve, has no feathers of this description. The weight of the ruff is generally more than seven ounces, and that of the reeve about four.
These birds are found in the fens of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and Yorkshire.
In the early part of spring they begin to appear in the fens, and they disappear about Michaelmas. These birds are caught in nets, and a skilful fowler has been known to catch six dozen in one morning. In general the males only are taken, the females being allowed to escape on account of their smaller size, and that they may be left to breed. When caught they are generally put up, for some days, to be fattened; and for this purpose are fed with boiled wheat, and bread and milk mixed with hempseed, to which sugar is sometimes added. By this treatment, in the course of a fortnight, they become excessively fat. The usual mode of killing them is by cutting off their head with a pair of scissars. They are cooked, like woodcocks, with their intestines, and, when in perfection, are esteemed by epicures a most delicious food.
It is a very singular habit of the males, which are much more numerous than the females, to take possession each of a small piece of ground, upon which they run in a circle until all the grass is worn away. These hills, as they are called by the fowlers, are near each other; and as soon as a female alights, all the ruffs of the neighbourhood immediately begin to fight for her. It is during this contest that the fowlers seize the opportunity of entangling them in their nets.
The reeves form their nests of a few straws and dried grass loosely put together upon the ground; and lay each four white eggs marked with large rust-coloured spots.
178. The LAPWING, or PEE-WIT (Tringa vanellus), is a well-known marsh bird, which has a crest at the back of the head, the upper part of its plumage green, the breast black, and the legs red.
Its general weight is seven or eight ounces. This bird frequents moist heaths and marshy grounds in nearly all the temperate parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa.