The ruff is highly esteemed as a most delicious dish, and is sought after with great eagerness by the fowlers, who live by catching them and other fen birds for the markets of the metropolis, &c. Before they are offered for sale, they are commonly put up to feed for about a fortnight, and during that time fed with boiled wheat, and bread and milk mixed with hempseed, to which sugar is sometimes added: by this mode of treatment they become very fat, and are often sold as high as two shillings and sixpence each. They are cooked in the same manner as the woodcock.
The female, in the beginning of May, makes her nest in a dry tuft of grass in the fens, and lays four white eggs, marked with rusty spots.
These birds are common in the summer season in the fens of Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, and are also found in other more northern regions, even as far as Iceland.
The trade of catching ruffs is confined to a very few persons. They live in obscure places on the verge of the fens, and are found out with difficulty; for few, if any birds, are ever bought, but by those who make a trade of fatting them for the table; and they sedulously conceal the abode of the fowlers; so much so, that by no art could we obtain from any of them where they resided; and in order to deceive us, after evading our entreaties, they gave us instructions that led us quite a contrary direction. The reason of all this was obvious; for after much labour and search in the most obscure places, (for neither the innkeepers, nor other inhabitants of the towns, could give any information, and many did not know such a bird was peculiar to their fens,) we found out a very civil and intelligent fowler, who resided close to Spalding, at Fengate, by name William Burton (we feel a pleasure in recording his name, not only from his obliging nature, but for the use of others in similar pursuits); and, strange to say, that although this man had constantly sold ruffs to Mr. Towns, a noted feeder, hereafter more particularly noticed, as also to another feeder at Cowbit, by the name of Weeks, neither of those persons could be induced to inform us even of the name of this fowler. The reason, however, was evident, and justly remarked by Burton, for he obtained no more than ten shillings per dozen, whereas Weeks demanded thirty shillings for the like number he had the same day bought of Burton. The season was far advanced, and we were obliged to buy some at that price of Weeks, for Burton could not then catch us as many as were required.
At this time we were shown into a room where there were about seven dozen males and a dozen females, and of the former there were not two alike. This intrusion to choose our birds, drove them from their stands, and compelling some to trespass upon the premises of others, produced many battles.
By this feeder we learned, that two guineas a dozen was now the price for fattened ruffs; and he never remembered the price under thirty shillings, when fit for table.
Mr. Towns, the noted feeder at Spalding, assured us his family had been a hundred years in the trade, and boasted they had served George the Second, and many noble families in the kingdom. He undertook, at the desire of the late Marquess of Townsend, when that nobleman was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to take some ruffs to that country, and actually set off with twenty-seven dozen from Lincolnshire; left seven dozen at the Duke of Devonshire’s, at Chatsworth; continued his route across the kingdom, to Holyhead; and delivered seventeen dozen alive in Ireland; having lost only three dozen in so long a journey, confined and greatly crowded as they were in baskets, which were carried upon two horses.
The manner of taking these birds is somewhat different in the two seasons; in the spring, the ruffs hill, as it is termed; that is, they assemble upon a rising spot of ground, contiguous to where the reeves propose to deposit their eggs; there they take their stand, at a small distance from each other, and contend for the females; the nature of polygamous birds. This hill, or place of resort for love and battle, is sought for by the fowler, who, from habit, discovers it by the birds having trodden the turf somewhat bare, though not in a circle as usually described.
When a hill has been discovered, the fowler repairs to the spot before the break of day, spreads his net, places his decoy birds, and takes his stand at the distance of about one hundred and forty yards, or more, according to the shyness of the birds.
The net is what is termed a single clap-net, about seventeen feet in length, and six wide, with a pole at each end; this, by means of uprights fixed in the ground, and each furnished with a pulley, is easily pulled over the birds within reach, and rarely fails taking all within its grasp; but in order to give the pull the greatest velocity, the net is, (if circumstances will permit) placed so as to fold over with the wind: however there are some fowlers, who prefer pulling it against the wind for plovers. As the ruffs feed chiefly by night, they repair to their frequented hill at the dawn of day, nearly all at the same time, and the fowler makes his first pull according to circumstances, takes out his birds, and prepares for the stragglers who traverse the fens, and who have no adopted hill; these are caught singly, being enticed by the stuffed birds.