RUFF. 261 



MACHETES PUGNAX (Linncens). 

 BUFF OR (FEMALE) REEYE. 



Whilst lamenting the absence from our marshes in 

 summer of the avocet, the black-tailed godwit, and the 

 black tern, it is remarkable that the Ruff, with all its 

 peculiarities of action and plumage, should still remain 

 with us during the breeding season. Norfolk, also, as 

 far as I can ascertain, is now the last resort of this 

 species in the Eastern Counties. Pennant described 

 it as frequenting in his time various localities in 

 Lincolnshire, the Isle of Ely, and the East Riding of 

 Yorkshire, but Colonel Montagu,* when making a tour 

 in Lincolnshire, with special reference to this species, at 

 the commencement of the present century, found " that 

 they were become much more scarce than they were 

 before a large tract of the fens was drained and 

 enclosed ;" and both in that county and in Suffolk, 

 I believe, they are now extinct, except as 'passing 

 migrants.f 



In this county, in former times, not only the marshy 

 portions of the " Broad " district but also the western 

 Fens, appear to have been frequented by these birds in 

 considerable numbers, for Sir Thomas Browne remarks 

 "they most abound in Marshland, but are also in 

 good numbers in the marshes between Norwich and 

 Yarmouth." From Mr. Alfred Newton's enquiries 

 some few years since, there is no doubt that they were 



* See the " Supplement " to Montagu's " Ornithological Dic- 

 tionary," published in 1813. 



f Mr. A. G. More, in his paper on the " Distribution of Birds 

 in Great Britain during the nesting season" (" Ibis," 1865, p. 437), 

 speaks of the ruff as having ceased from breeding in Durham 

 and Yorkshire, in Huntingdon, Cambridge, Northampton, and 

 " probably also in Lincolnshire," and gives only East Norfolk as 

 an annual breeding site, with Northumberland " occasionally.'* 



