COMMON RUFF. 173 



population, is now of rare occurrence in those parts. It 

 appears that many of the Ruffs now merely sojourn with us 

 for a short time during their vernal and autumnal migra- 

 tions. On the east coast of Scotland they usually appear 

 about the middle of September, and depart in about a fort- 

 night ; but I have never seen an adult male killed there ; the 

 little flocks that occur being young birds and females. 



In the end of August, and in September and October, 

 small flocks are sometimes met with along the east coast of 

 Aberdeenshire, especially about Ythan Mouth, and thence 

 to Aberdeen, and in the estuaries of the South Esk and 

 Tay. They seem to pass southward after a very short 

 sojourn. They are also not very unfrequently met with on 

 the shores of the Frith of Forth. From thence, all along 

 the eastern and part of the southern shores of England, they 

 have been met with here and there. The bird is not known 

 to breed any where in Scotland or its islands, and therefore 

 it is more than probable that these flocks have winged their 

 way from Scandinavia, in some parts of which no bird is 

 more common during the summer. We have no facts as to 

 their passage along the western coasts of Scotland and 

 England ; but Mr. Thompson states that they occur not un- 

 frequently in Belfast Bay, and sometimes in other parts of 

 Ireland, though not hitherto observed on the western or 

 southern coasts. 



Very few now breed in England, and none, in so far as is 

 known, in Scotland or Ireland. They reappear, on their 

 return to the north, in spring, from March to the middle of 

 May ; but in smaller numbers. Montagu states in the Sup- 

 plement of his Ornithological Dictionary, published in 1813, 

 that he made a tour through Lincolnshire to make himself 

 acquainted with the history of this singular bird. He found 

 that, owing to the draining of a large tract of fen, they had 

 become scarcer than they used to be. 



" The trade of catching Ruffs," he says, " is confined to 

 a very few persons, which at present scarcely repays their 

 trouble and expense of nets. These people live in obscure 

 places on the verge of the fens, and are found out with diffi- 

 culty, for few, if any, birds are ever bought but by those 



