RUFF. 581 



Whole lenotli of tlie male about twelve inclies and a half. 

 Wing, from the carpal joint to the end of the first quill- 

 feather, which is the longest, six inches and a half. The 

 weight of a RufF about six ounces, but a RufF, when fatted, 

 will weigh ten ounces. 



Montagu says " the long feathers on the neck and sides 

 of the head, in the male, that constitute the ruff and auricles, 

 are of short duration, for they are scarcely completed in the 

 month of May, and begin to fall the latter end of June. 

 The change of these singular parts is accompanied by a com- 

 plete change of plumage ; the stronger colours, such as pur- 

 ple, chestnut, and some others, vanish at the same time, so 

 that in their winter dress they become more generally alike 

 from being less varied in their plumage ; but we observed 

 that those who had the ruff more or less white, retained that 

 colour about the neck after the autumnal moulting was effect- 

 ed. We noticed that in confinement their annual changes 

 never varied ; every spring produced the same coloured ruff 

 and other feathers, but the tubercles on the face never ap- 

 peared. A young male that was taken destitute of a ruff 

 in the breeding-season, whose plumage was mostly cinereous, 

 except about the head and neck, put on the ruff in confinement 

 the next spring for the first time, which was large, and the 

 feathers Avere a mixture of white and chestnut : the scapulars 

 and breast, also marked with chestnut ; and in the succeed- 

 ing autumnal moulting he reassumed his former cinereous 

 plumage." 



In a specimen, kept over two summers, at the Gardens of 

 the Zoological Society in the Regent's Park, the moulting 

 of the ruff commenced on the head and neck, about the 29th 

 of March 1832; the feathers on the body were not thrown 

 off; the head and neck Avere left destitute of plumage, but 

 the feathers of the body remained in a perfect state. The 

 new ruff and head feathers appeared almost immediately, and 



