. An illustrated manual of British birds . t A. THE RUFF. Machetes pugnax (Lnna;us). The Rufi and Reeve—the latter being the name apphed to thefemale—used formerly to breed in many of the marshy districts ofEngland ; but drainage, and the practice of capturing the birds forthe table in spring, when game is out of season, have so far diminishedtheir numbers that they are now little more than visitors on the springmigration, and again more abundantly in autumn; a few beingoccasionally met with during the winter. In Lincolnshire, wherethe species was once plentiful, a female was shot from her nes
. An illustrated manual of British birds . t A. THE RUFF. Machetes pugnax (Lnna;us). The Rufi and Reeve—the latter being the name apphed to thefemale—used formerly to breed in many of the marshy districts ofEngland ; but drainage, and the practice of capturing the birds forthe table in spring, when game is out of season, have so far diminishedtheir numbers that they are now little more than visitors on the springmigration, and again more abundantly in autumn; a few beingoccasionally met with during the winter. In Lincolnshire, wherethe species was once plentiful, a female was shot from her nest—in defiance of the law—in 1882, and in Norfolk a few harassedbirds sometimes rear their broods in spite of the endeavours ot col-lectors to obtain the adults with the egg^. In the west of Englandthe Ruff is decidedly rarer than on the east, and the same may besaid of Scotland, where it occurs from ]]er\vickshirc to the Orkneys 586 RUFF. and Shetlands, but has only just been noticed in the OuterHebrides. In Ireland it is of uncommon o
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidillustra, booksubjectbirds
