RUFF. 623 



Thomas Allis, 1844, wrote : 



Machetes pugnax. The Ruff Used to be common, according to 

 F. O. Morris, on Hatfield Moor twenty years ago ; are still occasionally 

 met with on Skipwith Common not far from Selby. I have one specimen 

 in winter plumage shot near York in February, and have seen one or 

 two others in the same plumage shot about the same time. A. 

 Strickland says before the drainage of the Carrs they used to be taken 

 in considerable numbers in the breeding season, but he should doubt 

 if any had bred in this county within the last half century ; he never 

 met with any except young birds of the year that occasionally stray 

 and join flocks of other species of Sandpipers. 



This singular and interesting species, in the latter part 

 of the eighteenth and early part of the last century, bred 

 commonly in suitable marshy districts, but owing to drainage 

 and cultivation of its haunts, and to the practice, which at 

 that period was in vogue, of capturing the birds in the breeding 

 season to fatten them for the table, it is now only known as 

 a bird of passage during migration in spring and autumn. 

 Under these circumstances a short review of its former status 

 in the county is desirable. 



In Pennant's " British Zoology " (1766, ii. p. 363), we are 

 told that "These birds are found ... in the East Riding of 

 Yorkshire where they are taken in nets, and fattened for the 

 table, with bread and milk, hempseed, and sometimes with 

 boiled wheat ; but if expedition is required, sugar is added, 

 which will make them in a fortnight's time a lump of fat : 

 they will then sell for 2/- or 2/6 a piece. Judgment is required 

 for taking the proper time for killing them, when they are in 

 the highest pitch of fatness, for if that is neglected the birds 

 are apt to fall away. [Here follow method of killing, dressing, 

 habits as to fighting, and intimation that the females or 

 Reeves are not taken.] They lay four eggs in a tuft of grass, 

 beginning to lay the first week in May, and sit about a month ; 

 the eggs are whitish, thinly marked with deep ferruginous 

 spots. They are birds of passage, coming into the fens the 

 latter end of April, and disappearing about Michaelmas. 

 These birds are taken by the fen fowlers in nets that are 

 about 40 yards long, and 7 or 8 feet high. These are sup- 

 ported by sticks at an angle of near forty-five degrees, and 



