MACHETES PUGNAX. 
Ruff. 
Tringa pugmx, Linn. Faun. Suec., p. 62. 
Uttorea, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 251. 
rnfescens, Bechst. Naturg. DeutschL, tom. iv. p. 332. 
equestris et grenovicensis, Lath. Ind. Orn., tom. ii. pp. 730, 731. 
variegata, Briinn, Orn. Bor., p. 54. 
Totanus pugnax, Nilss. 
Machetes pugnax, Cuv. Regn. Anim., tom. i. p. 490. 
planiceps, Brehm, Vdg. DeutschL, p. 671. 
alticeps, Brehm, ib., p. 670, tab. 34. fig. 4. 
Pavoncella pugnax, Leach, Syst. Cat. of Indig. Mamm. and Birds in Brit. Mus., p. 29. 
Philomachus pugnax, G. R. Gray, List of Gen. of Birds, 1841, p. 89. 
On taking up my pen to say a few words respecting the Ruff, I am fully aware of the high interest which 
attaches to the subject ; for of all the Sandpipers this bird is the most extraordinary, and possesses characters 
unlike any other. In nearly all the species of the great family of Tnngmce the females are the largest of 
the two sexes ; but in the Ruff the females or Reeves are about half the size of the males. During 
spring, or the breeding-season, too, the male is adorned with the most profuse ornamentation, in the shape 
of neck-plumes and ear-tufts, that can be conceived ; for not even among the GaU'mce is this feature more 
strongly developed ; at the same time a multitude of fleshy tubercles appear on the face, which, as well as 
the ruff and ear-tufts, disappear at the close of the breeding-season. To this must he added that, while most 
of the Sandpipers are excellent for the table, the Ruff and his little [jartner the Reeve are especially so. For 
all time since birds were eaten, and delicacies sought after for the delectation of the epicure, these birds 
have been highly esteemed, and have ever formed part of the great feasts given by kings and other poten- 
tates, and are still in high favour; for even at the moment I am penning these lines (May 1871) London 
teems with examples for the enjoyment of those who can afford their purchase. Those which now appear 
in our markets have been snared or otherwise obtained in Holland. Formerly, even so late as the com- 
mencement of the present century, there was no need for this Dutch sujiply ; for sufficient for the demand 
could then be obtained in Norfolk and Lincolnshire. Now a solitary pair, or at most a score, are all that 
those counties are able to send us in a month. Ruffs and Reeves, in fact, like many other marsh-loving birds, 
find their place there no more, the draining and clearing of the fens having deprived such localities of the 
conditions fitted for their existence ; the sites which afforded a natural home to the Bittern, the Spoonbill, 
the Ruff and Reeve, and many other birds are now covered with waving corn, and afford an abundance 
of cereal, instead of feathered, food for man. In many parts of Holland, however, and particularly in the 
northern portion of Friesland, the Ruff and other marsh-birds still are found in their usual abundance, the 
land therein not being capable of improvement. There are many other parts of the Continent in which 
similar physical conditions occur, and where the Ruff is also found : these are some portions of France, Bel- 
gium, the great swamps at the mouth of the Danube, Turkey, and Russia. To all such places the Ruff 
migrates in the month of April, and, taking his stand upon some small hillock, like a knight of old, challenges 
his neighbour to mortal combat, until the females arrive and select the strongest, the vanquished getting a 
mate or not as the case may be. These matters settled, the nesting soon commences, and the marsh is 
speedily studded over with nests, or rather with depressions in the ground, where the female hatches her 
four beautiful eggs and rears her young, which, like most youthful Sandpipers, are at first covered with a 
variegated down, and are but feeble creatures. After some little time, however, they attain strength, and, 
plumage taking the place of their first downy covering, they are able to exercise their pinions, and fly from 
the place of their birth to the shores of the sea and other suitable localities, not only in every part of Europe 
and Africa, but in India and China. I do not mean that the Ruffs found in the two last-mentioned countries 
are birds that have been bred in Holland, hut that probably similar colonies also occur in Russia and Siberia ; 
so numerous is this remarkable bird. Besides the extraordinary development of the frill in the Ruff, there 
is another circumstance connected with it which renders it still more astonishing — namely, that it is all but 
impossible to find two males in which it is similarly coloured; but whatever may be the colouring first 
assumed, it is retained through each subsequent change. Thus, if the prevailing colour at the first assump- 
tion be red, it will be of that hue at the recurrence of each successive breeding-season ; if black, black it will 
