THE COMMON RUFF. 
127 
England.' That in Ben Jonson's time the bird was consi- 
dered an article of luxurious diet we may learn from this 
passage in one of his plays : — 
You 'r eating 
Pheasant and Godwit here in London, haunting 
The Globes and Mermaids ; walking it with lords 
Still at the table. 
And Thomas Muffit, as Nares informs us in his ' Glossary/ 
' the ever-famous doctor in physic,' as he is called in the 
title-page of his work entitled ^ Health's Improvement,' 
says, ' A fat Godwit is so fine and light meat, that 
noblemen, yea, merchants too, by your leave, stick not to 
buy them at four nobles a dozen.' They are still occa- 
sionally sent up to the London market by the Lincolnshire 
fen men, v/hen they happen to catch any. 
RUFF. 
The Common Ruff {Tringa^ or Machetes pugnax). — For 
grace and elegance commend us to the pair of birds called 
the RuiF and Reeve, the latter being the name applied to the 
female of this species. Our artist, we think, has scarcely 
done them justice, for no one can look at the dapper 
little gentleman, with his neck surrounded by a voluminous 
frill of silky feathers, without confessing that lie a 
