The Ruff and Reeve. 143 



purposes, take to a diet of buds and other vegetable matter, even tbose species 

 whicb elsewhere are accustomed to a purely animal diet. 



Family— SCOL OP A CID^. 



The Ruff and Reeve. 



Machetes pugnax, LiNN. 



THE Ruff is a dog that has got a bad name — its two Latin names 

 signifying the "Quarrelsome Fighter" — and not without reason. It is, 

 however, a bird to be looked upon with pity and regret, as one that formerly bred 

 with us in considerable numbers, and is now on the verge of extinction as a 

 breeding species. The drainage of waste lands has been an important factor in 

 bringing this about, but it was the custom of netting the birds at their breeding 

 grounds, for the tables of the luxurious, when game was out of season, which 

 settled their fate. They might even yet recover from this, and become compara- 

 tively abundant in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk, were it not for wholesale 

 &%'g collectors — " clutch-mongers " — to whom the Wild Birds' Preservation Act is 

 no deterrent whatever. The Ruff breeds in some numbers still in Holland, 

 Belgium, Denmark, Scandinavia, Russia, North Germany, and Poland. With us, 

 and elsewhere in Europe, it is a spring and autumn migrant. It winters in 

 Africa, from north to south. It breeds also in Northern Asia, has occurred on 

 passage in Japan, and winters in India, Burmah, and Borneo. In America it has 

 occurred as a rare straggler, down to the Orinoco. 



Description of adult males (North of England, June, 1877, and May, 1883): 

 bill brown, darker at tip ; irides umber ; head and neck (on which is a large 

 erectile ruff) any shade of black, white or chestnut red as a ground colour, barred 

 or spotted with either or both of the other two colours ; breast and back coarsely 

 blotched with the same colours as prevail on the ruff; rest of upper parts hair- 



