THE RUFF. 131 



they arrive in great numbers on the coasts of Holland, Ger- 

 many, Flanders and England ; they are equally abundant 

 in Sweden, occur in Denmark, Norway, Finmark and Ice- 

 land, and breed in the great desolate marshes of Siberia 

 and Lapland, as well as in milder latitudes. According to 

 Skioldebrand,* at Uleaborg, the capital of Ostrobothnia, 

 they arrive in the spring, in such vast flocks, as almost to 

 obscure the heavens, and resting on the floating ice, or on 

 the ban^is of the rivers, fill the air with their confused 

 cries ; and the Ruffs, contending for their mates, appear 

 like a pigmy army of pugilists. My friend Mr. Cooper, 

 about three years ago, obtained a specimen of the Ruff", 

 from the shores of Long Island. From the rarity of this 

 occurrence, we can only consider the Ruff", on the Ameri- 

 can coasts, as an accidental straggler ; and their visits are 

 probably more common on the western than the eastern 

 side of the continent. 



The Ruffs, like most of the birds, bred in hiorh boreal 

 latitudes, are under the necessity of migrating to milder 

 climates, at the approach of winter. These northern hosts 

 therefore now spread themselves over Europe, and the con- 

 tiguous continents, until the return of spring invites them 

 a^ain to revisit the north. Different from the birds of the 

 preceding section of this genus, the breeding limits of the 

 Ruff* extend from the marshes of England and Holland, to 

 the confines of the arctic circle, and while the mass of the 

 species are driven by the vicissitudes of the seasons to per- 

 form extensive migrations for the means of support, others, 

 residing in milder climes, scarcely proceed further, in the 

 course of the winter, than to the sea coasts in the vicinity 

 of their native marshes. At any rate, it appears certain, 

 that the Ruff", unlike the Sandpiper, never wanders into 



♦ Skioldebrand^ s Picturesque Voyage to Cape North, p. 15. (French edition.) 



