RUFF. 267 
being purchased not merely by the naturalist, but 
by any one desiring “a pretty object in a glass 
ease.” Of the assumption of its peculiar dress by the 
male he says, “The whole of this extra plumage is 
put forth in about five weeks. A ruff shot in the 
beginning of April, the period of their arrival, if the 
spring is fine, has a few caruncles about the base of 
the bill, and the feathers of the neck appear in a ragged 
and unsettled state; here and there a longer-one, half 
perfected, protruding. In a month this bird’s ‘ show’ 
would be complete.* The young ruffs of one year do 
not produce so perfect a ‘show’ as older birds.” 
When in perfect plumage “the colours of the ruffs 
are so various that it is hard to say which is most 
common; perhaps the most general livery is reddish 
chesnut, or black and white bars; the rarest tint is 
certainly pure white. A hill of ruffs looked at from a 
distance on a sunny day, with the light glancing on 
their party-coloured plumage, was a very pleasing 
spectacle, though now of rare occurrence in Norfolk. 
To view them thus, it was necessary to be paddled by 
a skilful hand in a small punt up some main dyke in 
the fen, so as to approach completely screened from 
view by the high banks; for no bird is more vigilant, 
or more impatient of near approach, than this. It is 
therefore very difficult to shoot, although it may some- 
times be allured within fair reach of the gun by means 
of a stalet or stuffed reeve. This, however, is only for 
* The feathers which form the ruff, according to Montagu, 
“are scarcely completed in the month of May, and begin to fall 
the latter end of June;’’ and the fowlers believe that the males 
“are not more than one season in arriving at maturity.” 
+ This word, known to every Shakespearian reader, seems in 
process of time to have become corrupted as to its meaning. It 
appears to have originally signified a dead bird, set up so as to 
look like a living one. The method of making a “stale” is thus 
2m 2 
