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RUFF SANDPIPER. Cuass If. 
female lights, the ruffs immediately begin fight- 
ing. I find a vulgar error, that ruffs must be fed 
in the dark least they should destroy each other 
by fighting on admission of light. The truth is, 
every bird takes its stand in the room as it would 
in the open fen. If another invades its circle, an 
attack is made, and a battle ensues. They em- 
ploy the same action in fighting as a cock, 
place their bills to the ground and spread their 
ruffs. I have set a whole room full in action 
by making them move their stations; and after 
quitting the place, by peeping through a cre- 
vice, have seen them resume their circles and 
become pacific. 
When a fowler discovers one of these hills, 
he places his net over night, which is of the 
same kind as those that are called clap or day 
mets, only it is generally single, and is about 
fourteen yards long and four broad. The 
fowler resorts to his stand at day break, at 
the distance of one, two, three, or four hun- 
dred yards from the nets, according to the time 
of the season ; for the later it is, the shyer the 
birds grow. He then makes his first pull, tak- 
ing those birds that he finds within reach} after 
that he places his stuft birds or stales to entice 
those that are continually traversing the fen. 
An old fowler told me, he once caught forty- 
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