424 Scolopacidce. 



lou-ey, lou-ey* Professor Skeat derives our English word 

 ' Godwit ' from the Anglo-Saxon god, ' good,' and w-iht ' creature,' 

 the goodness of the creature having reference, I conclude, to its 

 edible qualities. In France it is Barge rousse ; in Germany, Rost- 

 brauner Wasserlailfer ; in Portugal, Macarico gallego. 



158. RUFF (Machetes pugnax) . 



This is truly a fen bird, and belongs of right to the eastern 

 counties, from which, however, the draining of the fens and the 

 rage for reclaiming waste land have nearly succeeded in banishing 

 it. But I am glad to hail it as a straggler to our county, for it is 

 extremely handsome, and withal a very interesting species. Two 

 instances have come to my knowledge of its occurrence in Wilt- 

 shire, one killed by a farmer in the neighbourhood of Wootton 

 Bassett, about 1850 ; the other taken in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of Salisbury in 1828. The striking feature of the bird 

 is the strange frill or ruff of feathers which, together with con- 

 spicuous auricular plumes, surrounds the neck of the male bird 

 in his breeding plumage, and which when raised form a shield 

 round the head, reminding one of the costume of the worthies, 

 with whose portraits we are familiar, of the time of Elizabeth. At 

 that season, so much do they vary in colour of plumage that it is 

 scarcely possible to find two alike; the ruffs which these birds 

 assume being of all shades, from white, yellow, chestnut, brown, 

 or a mixture of any or all of these colours, to pure black. At all 

 other seasons of the year, they are of comparatively sober hue, and 

 more nearly resemble the females, which are called Reeves. 



These birds are polygamous, unlike all the rest of the Snipe 

 family ; and, like the Capercaillie and Blackcock, select a dry 

 hillock in the breeding season on which to ' hill,' as it is termed, 

 or take their stand in defiance of all rivals. And here these 

 magnificently bedizened Lotharios strut about in their pride of 

 dress, and proclaim aloud their readiness to combat all opponents, 

 and challenge such to fight for possession of the somewhat dowdy- 

 looking females assembled around. Indeed, they are most ex- 

 ' Birds of Middlesex,' p. 184. 



