COMMON RUFF. 181 



several dishes of food were not placed amongst them, at a 

 distance from each other." 



Montagu carried some of these birds with him to 

 Devonshire. Several of them lived in confinement for two 

 and three years, and one for four years. He noticed that 

 their annual changes never varied ; every spring produced 

 the same coloured ruff and other feathers ; but the tubercles 

 on the face never appeared in confinement. 



" We had occasion to remark," he continues, " that 

 although the pugnacious disposition of the Ruff never en- 

 tirely ceased in confinement, yet it increased with the 

 growth of the long neck feathers in the spring, when the 

 least movement of either from their stand provoked a battle. 

 At other times they would occasionally sleep close to each 

 other, with their heads turned over the wing, and one leg 

 tucked up ; but a mess of bread and milk instantly roused 

 the latent spirit for battle, and one bird was so much 

 wounded in the throat in one of these feuds that he died. 

 Their actions in fighting are very similar to those of the 

 Game Cock ; the head is lowered, and the bill held in a 

 horizontal direction ; the ruff, and indeed every feather, 

 more or less distended, the former sweeping the ground as a 

 shield to defend the more tender parts ; the auricles erected, 

 and the tail partly spread ; upon the whole assuming a most 

 ferocious aspect. When either could obtain a firm hold with 

 the bill, a leap succeeded, accompanied with a stroke of the 

 wing ; but they rarely injured each other." 



Mr. Thompson, of Belfast, in his Natural History of 

 Ireland, presents a not pleasing battle-scene : — " A relative 

 has mentioned to me, that when he was leaving Rotterdam 

 for London, a few years ago, in spring, a huge basket con- 

 taining from two to three hundred Ruffs was put on board 

 the steamer. The incessant fighting of these birds proved 

 the grand source of attraction to the passengers during the 

 voyage. Their crib was one great battle-field, in which 

 every individual seemed to be at the same moment engaged, 

 and determined to keep up the warfare as long as life itself 

 lasted. It was a continual battle, and treading down of the 

 wounded and dying. About one half of them were slain 



