RUFF. 261 
MACHETES PUGNAX (Linneus). 
RUFF or (remate) REEVE. 
Whilst lamenting the absence from our marshes in 
summer of the avocet, the black-tailed godwit, and the 
black tern, it is remarkable that the Ruff, with all its 
peculiarities of action and plumage, should still remain 
with us during the breeding season. Norfolk, also, as 
far as I can ascertain, is now the last resort of this 
species in the Eastern Counties. Pennant described 
it as frequenting in his time various localities in 
Lincolnshire, the Isle of Ely, and the East Riding of 
Yorkshire, but Colonel Montagu,* when making a tour 
in Lincolnshire, with special reference to this species, at 
the commencement of the present century, found “ that 
they were become much more scarce than they were 
before a large tract of the fens was drained and 
enclosed ;” and both in that county and in Suffolk, 
I believe, they are now extinct, except as passing 
migrants.+ 
In this county, in former times, not only the marshy 
portions of the “ Broad” district but also the western 
Fens, appear to have been frequented by these birds in 
considerable numbers, for Sir Thomas Browne remarks 
“they most abound in Marshland, but are also in 
good numbers in the marshes between Norwich and 
Yarmouth.” From Mr. Alfred Newton’s enquiries 
some few years since, there is no doubt that they were 
* See the “Supplement” to Montagu’s “ Ornithological Dic- 
tionary,” published in 1813. 
+ Mr. A. G. More, in his paper on the “ Distribution of Birds 
in Great Britain during the nesting season” (“ Ibis,” 1865, p. 437), 
speaks of the ruff as having ceased from breeding in Durham 
and Yorkshire, in Huntingdon, Cambridge, Northampton, and 
“probably also in Lincolnshire,” and gives only East Norfolk as 
an annual breeding site, with Northumberland “ occasionally.” 
