266 THE RUFF AND REEVE 
THE RUFF AND REEVE 
MACHETES PUGNAX 
Male in spring—face covered with yellowish warty pimples; back of the 
head with a tuft of long feathers on each side; throat furnished with a 
ruff of prominent feathers; general plumage mottled with ash, black, 
brown, reddish white, and yellowish, but so variously, that scarcely 
two specimens can be found alike ; bill yellowish orange. Male in winter 
—face covered with feathers ; ruff absent; under parts white; breast 
reddish, with brown spots; upper plumage mottled with black, brown, 
and red; bill brownish. Length twelve and a half inches. Female, 
‘The Reeve ’—long feathers of the head and ruff absent ; upper plumage 
ash-brown, mottled with black and reddish brown; under parts greyish 
white; feet yellowish brown. Length ten and a half inches. In both 
sexes—tail rounded, the two middle feathers barred ; the three lateral 
feathers uniform in colour. Eggs olive, blotched and spotted with 
brown. 
Boru the systematic names of this bird are descriptive of its quarrel- 
some propensities: machetes is Greek for ‘a warrior’, pugnax 
Latin for ‘ pugnacious’. Well is the title deserved; for Ruffs do 
not merely fight when they meet, but meet in order to fight. The 
season for the indulgence of their warlike tastes is spring ; the scene, 
a rising spot of ground contiguous to a marsh; and here all the 
male birds of the district assemble at dawn, for many days in suc- 
cession, and do battle valiantly for the females, called Reeves, till 
the weakest are vanquished and leave possession of the field to 
their more powerful adversaries. The attitude during these con- 
tests is nearly that of the domestic Cock—the head lowered, the 
body horizontal, the collar bristling, and the beak extended. But 
Ruffs will fight to the death on other occasions. A basket con- 
taining two or three hundred Ruffs was once put on board a steamer 
leaving Rotterdam for London. The incessant fighting of the 
birds proved a grand source of attraction to the passengers during 
the voyage; and about half of them were slain before the vessel 
reached London. Ruffs are gluttonously disposed too, and, if 
captured by a fowler, will begin to eat the moment they are supplied 
with food ; but, however voracious they may be, if a basin of bread 
and milk or boiled wheat be placed before them, it is instantly 
contended for; and so pugnacious is their disposition, that even 
when fellow-captives, they would starve in the midst of plenty if 
several dishes of food were not placed amongst them at a distance 
from each other. 
Many years have not passed since these birds paid annual visits 
in large numbers to the fen-countries. They were, however, highly 
prized as delicacies for the table, and their undeviating habit of 
meeting to fight a pitched battle gave the fowler such an excellent 
opportunity of capturing all the combatants in his nets, that they 
have been gradually becoming more and more rare. The fowler, in 
fact, has been so successful that he has destroyed his own trade. 
ee 
