Burton, who was before mentioned, never used anything but stuffed skins, executed in a very rude manner; but some fowlers keep the first ruffs they catch for decoy birds; these have a string of about two feet long tied above the knee, and fastened down to the ground. The stuffed skins are sometimes so managed as to be moveable by means of a long string, so that a jerk represents a jump, (a motion very common amongst ruffs, who at the sight of a wanderer flying by, will leap or flirt a yard off the ground,) by that means inducing those on the wing to come and alight by him.
The stuffed birds are prepared by filling the skin with a wisp of straw tied together, the legs having been first cut off, and the skin afterwards sewed along the breast and belly, but with no great attention to cover the straw beneath: into this straw a stick is thrust, to fix it into the ground, and a peg is also thrust through the top of the head, and down the neck into the stuffing or straw body, and the wings are closed by the same process. Rough as this preparation is, and as unlike a living bird as skin and feathers can be made, it answers all the purpose.
When the reeves begin to lay, both those and the ruffs are least shy, and so easily caught, that a fowler assured us he could with certainty take every bird on the fen in the season. The females continue this boldness, and their temerity increases as they become broody; on the contrary, we found the males at that time could not be approached within the distance of musket shot, and consequently were far beyond the reach of small shot.
We were astonished to observe the property that these fowlers have acquired, of distinguishing so small an object as a ruff at such an immense distance, which, amongst a number of tufts or tumps, could not by us be distinguished from one of those inequalities; but their eyes had been in long practice of looking for the one object.
The autumnal catching is usually about Michaelmas, at which time few old males are taken, from which an opinion has been formed that they migrate before the females and young. It is, however, more probable, that the few which are left after the spring fowling, like other polygamous birds, keep in parties separate from the female and her brood till the return of spring. That some old ruffs are occasionally taken in the autumnal fowling we have the assertion of experienced fowlers, but we must admit that others declare none are taken at this season. It must, however, be recollected, that in the autumn the characteristic long feathers have been discharged, and consequently young and old males have equally their plain dress; but the person who assured us that old birds were sometimes taken at that season, declared it was easy to distinguish them from the young of that summer.
It does not appear to be the opinion of fowlers, that the males are more than one season arriving at maturity, because the ruffs taken in the spring, destitute of the characteristic long feathers, which constitute their principal distinction, are comparatively few to those possessing the ruff: the opinion, therefore, that those ruffless males are birds of a very late brood of the preceding season, is a reasonable conjecture.
The long feathers on the neck and sides of the head, in the male, that constitute the ruff and auricles, are of short duration, for they are scarcely completed in the month of May, and begin to fall the latter end of June. The change of these singular parts is accompanied by a complete change of plumage; the stronger colours, such as purple, chestnut, and some others, vanish at the same time, so that in their winter dress they become more generally alike from being less varied in plumage; but we observed that those which had the ruff more or less white, retained that colour about the neck after the summer or autumnal moulting was effected.
The females, or reeves, begin laying their eggs the first or second week in May; and we have found their nests with young as early as the third of June. By this time the males cease to hill.
The nest is usually formed upon a tump in the most swampy places, surrounded by coarse grass, of which it is also formed.
The eggs are (as usual with its congeners) four in number; these are so nearly similar in colour to those of the snipe and redshank, both of which breed in the same wet places, and make similar nests, that some experience is required to discriminate them; they are, however, superior in size to the former, and are known from the latter by the ground being of a greenish hue instead of rufous white; but individuals assimilate so nearly to each other as not to be distinguished, especially as the dusky and brown spots and blotches are similar. The weight of the eggs is from five drachms twenty-five grains, to five drachms fifty grains.—Montagu.