646 SCOLOPACID.E. 



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 plum- 

 age, 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 visiter to this country, 

 making its appearance in April and departing again in au- 

 tumn, at which time the young birds of the year, in small 

 flocks, are also seen, and single birds are occasionally killed 



* Pugnator. 



