RUFF. 269 
which, at the nuptial period, the ruffs assemble, and 
each bird taking up his own position, resents the least 
intrusion on his domain, whilst the favors of the reeves 
form a further source of contention. Such a congre- 
gation is termed a “ play of ruffs.” The same hill is 
not always used, but the birds will “sometimes hill in 
one marsh, and the next season resort to a different 
situation entirely.” Mr. Lubbock, evidently does not 
consider their combats as in any degree formidable, 
but rather to “threaten great things (as may be seen 
amongst dunghill chickens when they ruffle their 
feathers at each other without striking) than to perform 
much.” On one occasion, and one only, he “ counted 
eighteen ruffs upon one ‘hill’ in the Potter Heigham 
Marshes ;’? and when thus collected the birds keep 
continually “running to and fro, fighting and flut- 
tering their wings until they quite flatten down the 
grass.” If crowded at all on a hill there was con- 
tention, “but if there was plenty of room for each 
to walk about, they seemed to agree tolerably. The 
arrival of a fresh ruff upon a hill where some were already 
assembled, always caused unusual confusion for a minute 
or two,”* but he “ never heard of a ruff being taken in a 
marsh through injuries received in battle.” 
Of the method adopted for capturing them in the 
marshes, and the numbers so taken, Mr. Lubbock 
says “nets were never used to take these birds in 
Norfolk,” but snares made of horsehair, by which means 
a local fowler assured him “he once, and once only, took 
* In confinement Pennant found the same contention amongst 
the males, each bird taking up its own stand in the room as it 
would in the fen, and the least encroachment on their respective 
circles invariably caused a fight. “They make use of the same 
action in fighting as a cock, place their bills to the ground and 
spread their ruffs.” The same thing may be witnessed almost any 
year in one of the enclosures in the Zoological Gardens. 
