They are always in season, except at the time of spawning, which is in April, when the male fish have small white spots about their heads, and the scales of both sexes feel more rough; they swim in shoals, casting their spawn upon and among the aquatic plants, to the number according to the Elements of Natural History, of 91,000 ova.
Their flesh is exceedingly wholesome, and holds a distinguished rank for its fine flavour; but they are very scarce.
Mr. Pennant believes the shallow of the Cam, which grows to the length of thirteen inches, and spawns in April, to be no other fish than the rud.
The angler will find the rud worth his attention; the tackle must be strong, but fine, with a quill float, and a hook proportioned to the bait; the same ground-bait is to be used as for carp and chub, fishing about the same depths as for the latter, except on the ground, for they feed naturally near the surface; they will in this way take red-worms, gentles, wasp-maggots, caddis, and red-paste. Some use a ground-bait of boiled malt, and prefer a small red worm to any other bait. In fishing among weeds, have neither float nor shot, and let the worm, or other bait sink a little under water: at top they are taken either with natural or artificial flies, by whipping with a long, and dibbing or bobbing with a short line. In warm, bright weather, the rud will bite early and late; when coolish, the fore and afternoons; and in winter, the middle of the day; when hooked this fish struggles hard, and requires time in landing, and is so tenacious of life, as to retain it after being taken out of the water a considerable time.—Daniel.
Ruddock, s. A kind of bird.
Ruddy, a. Approaching to redness, pale red; yellow.
Ruff, s. A puckered linen ornament formerly worn about the neck; a bird.
The male of this curious species is called the ruff, and the female the reeve: they differ materially in their exterior appearance; and also, what is remarkable in wild birds, it very rarely happens that two ruffs are alike in the colours of their plumage. The singular, wide-spreading, variegated tuft of feathers which, in the breeding season, grows out of their necks, is different in all. The tuft, or ruff, a portion of which stands up like ears behind each eye, is in some black, in others black and yellow, and in others again white, rust colour, or barred with glossy violet, black and white. They are, however, more nearly alike in other respects: they measure about a foot in length, and two in breadth, and when first taken weigh about seven ounces and a half; the female seldom exceeds four. The bill is more than an inch long, black at the tip, and reddish yellow towards the base; the irides are hazel: the whole face is covered with reddish tubercles, or pimples; the wing coverts are brownish ash colour; the upper parts and the breast are generally marked with transverse bars, and the scapulars with roundish-shaped glossy black spots, on a rusty coloured ground; quills dusky; belly, vent, and tail coverts white; the tail is brown; the four middle feathers of it are barred with black; the legs are yellow. The male does not acquire the ornament of his neck till the second season, and, before that time, is not easily distinguished from the female, except by being larger. After moulting, at the end of June, he loses his ruff and the red tubercles on his face, and from that time until the spring of the year, he again, in the plumage, looks like his mate.
These birds leave Great Britain in the winter, and are then supposed to associate with others of the tringa genus, among which they are no longer recognised as the ruff and reeve. In the spring, as soon as they arrive again in England, and take up their abode in the fens where they were bred, each of the males (of which there appears to be a much greater number than of the females) immediately fixes upon a particular dry and grassy spot in the marsh, about which he runs round and round, until it is trodden bare; to this spot, it appears, he wishes to invite the female, and waits in expectation of her taking a joint possession, and becoming an inmate. As soon as a single female arrives, and is heard or observed by the males, her feeble cry seems as if it roused them all to war, for they instantly begin to fight, and their combats are described as being both desperate and of long continuance: at the end of the battle she becomes the prize of the victor. It is at the time of these battles that they are caught in the greatest numbers in the nets of the fowlers, who watch for that opportunity: they are also, at other times, caught by clap, or day-nets, and are drawn together by means of a stuffed reeve, or what is called a stale bird, which is placed in some suitable spot for that purpose.