RUFF. 693 



MACHETES. Generic Characters. Bill straight, rather slender, as long 

 as the head, with the tip dilated and smooth ; upper mandible laterally 

 sulcated for four-fifths of its length ; culmen rounded. Nostrils basal, 

 lateral, linear, placed in the commencement of the groove. Wings long, 

 and pointed, with the first and second quill-feathers of equal length, and 

 the longest in the wing. Legs long and slender, the tibia naked for a 

 considerable space above the tarsal joint. Feet four-toed ; three before 

 and one behind ; the outer toe united to the middle one by a membrane 

 as far as the first joint ; the inner toe free ; hind toe short, articulated 

 upon the tarsus, with the tip of the claw barely touching the ground. In 

 plumage, the head and neck of the male, during the breeding-season, are 

 adorned with long plumose feathers springing from the occiput and throat; 

 which, when raised, form a large ruff or shield around the head ; and the 

 face of the male bird, during the same period, is covered with small fleshy 

 warts or papillae. Selby. 



THE RUFF differs in so many points from the species in- 

 cluded in the genera Totanus, Scolopax, and Tringa, that 

 the generic division and term, Machetes,* in reference to 

 its pugnacious habits, proposed for it by Baron Cuvier, in 

 the edition of his Regne Animal, dated 1817, has been 

 admitted by many systematic writers, and adopted by M. 

 Temminck in the fourth Supplementary Part of his 

 Manual, as already quoted. The most marked distinc- 

 tions of this species, which up to the present time is the 

 only one of the genus known, are, the periodical assump- 

 tion by the males of the Ruff about the neck, which has 

 led to the English name ; that scarcely any two of these 

 males can be found of the same colour, which is very un- 

 usual among wild birds, while the females are uniform in 

 colour, or nearly so ; that the males are polygamous, and 

 about one-third larger than the females, in both of which 

 points the Ruffs differ from the characters of the genera 

 named. 



The Ruff, like several of the species lately described, 

 may be considered only as a summer visitor to this country, 

 making its appearance in April and departing again in au- 



* Pugnator. 



