THE RUFF 489 



After reading Montagu's account of the way in which in his days 

 they were captured for the table, we can hardly be surprised that 

 only a scanty remnant of our breeding stock survives. With great 

 difficulty he obtained an introduction to one William Burton, a 

 fowler of Fen-gate, near Spalding, who made a living by netting the 

 birds, and was shown into a room where there were about seven 

 dozen ruffs and a dozen reeves, which were being fattened for the 

 table. On one occasion he tells us that Towns, the feeder at Spalding, 

 set out for Ireland with twenty-seven dozen birds from Lincolnshire, 

 confined in two baskets, which were carried on two horses. He 

 reached Dublin with the loss of only three dozen, and after leaving 

 seven dozen at Chatsworth on the way, delivered the remaining 

 seventeen dozen alive to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland ! But even 

 this number is trifling when compared with Leland's statement that 

 at the great banquet at Cawood in 1466, " Of the fowles called Rees 

 there were supplied 300 dozen ! " Pennant also speaks of six dozen 

 being taken in one morning, and from forty to fifty dozen by one 

 fowler in a season. Unfortunately the breeding habits of this species 

 rendered their capture easy, and the skilled fowlers could with 

 certainty depend on netting every ruff on a given fen at the time 

 when breeding operations should have been at their height. In the 

 autumn the hens and young birds from other districts would come in 

 on their way south, and many of these, attracted by decoys, also fell 

 victims, so that it is not surprising that after a time the supply failed, 

 and fattened ruffs ceased to form a stock dish on the menu of the 

 epicure in England. But though our breeding stock is on the verge 

 of extinction, we are still visited in August and September by flocks 

 of young birds, presumably from Scandinavia, which arrive on the 

 Northumbrian coast, and also visit the Solway marshes, as well as 

 sewage farms and swamps in many parts of England. As these birds 

 do not show any signs of the wonderful ruff so conspicuous in the 

 adult males in spring, they attract little attention, and frequently pass 

 unrecognised. 



