230 SYSTEMATIC CATALOGUE. 



and the same remark applies to many congenerous 

 birds. 



The practical observer or collector should not 

 fail to look out carefully for good specimens dur- 

 ing this brief but golden period. However regular 

 hitherto his visits to their favourite haunts, yet his 

 expeditions will have been comparatively fruitless 

 and unsatisfactory until now, and the first intima- 

 tion of the arrival of the strangers will probably be 

 the appearance on some muddy bank, at ebb-tide, 

 of a little party of confiding godwits, all in the full 

 breeding-plumage, when perhaps not a single bird 

 of the same species had occurred on any pre- 

 vious day during the season in the same state of 

 feather. 



RUFF, Machetes pugnax. A scarce bird in Sus- 

 sex, except on poulterers' stalls. I never knew an 

 adult male killed here during the summer, but 

 have met with it at Pagham in the winter, when 

 the plumage resembled that of the female, or 

 reeve the ornamental ruff having then disap- 

 peared. One of the latter was captured in a sin- 

 gular manner a few years ago near Hove. It flew 

 into a birdcatcher's net, apparently attracted by 

 the decoy lark. It was sent alive to Mr. Sways- 

 land, of Brighton. 



In a bird of the year the fore part of the neck 



