117. RUFF. _Machetes pugnax,_ Linnaeus. French, "Combatant," "Combatant variable."--The Ruff is an occasional but not very common autumn and winter visitant; it occurs, probably, more frequently in the autumn than the winter. Mr. MacCulloch writes me, "I have a note of a Ruff shot in October, 1871." This probably was, like all the Guernsey specimens I have seen, a young bird of the year in that state of plumage in which it leads to all sorts of mistakes, people wildly supposing it to be either a Buff-breasted or a Bartram's Sandpiper. Miss C.B. Carey records one in the 'Zoologist' for 1871 as shot in September of that year; this was a young bird of the year. Miss C.B. Carey also records two in the 'Zoologist' for 1872 as having been shot about the 13th of April in that year; these she describes as being in change of plumage but having no ruff yet; probably the change of colour in the feathers was beginning before the long feathers of the ruff began to grow; and this agrees with what I have seen of the Ruff in confinement; the change of colour in the feathers of the body begins before the ruff makes its appearance. Professor Ansted includes the Ruff in his list, and only marks it as occurring in Guernsey. There is no specimen in the Museum at present. 118. WOODCOCK. _Scolopax rusticola_, Linnaeus. French, "Becasse ordinaire."--The Woodcock is a regular and tolerably common autumnal visitant to all the Islands, arriving and departing about the same time as in England,--none, however, remaining to breed, as is so frequently the case with us. There might be some good cock shooting in the Islands if the Woodcocks were the least preserved, but as soon as one is heard of every person in the Island who can beg, borrow, or steal a gun and some powder and shot is out long before daylight, waiting for the first shot at the unfortunate Woodcock as soon as there should be sufficient daylight. In fact, such a scramble is there for a chance at a Woodcock that a friend of mine told me he got up long before daylight one morning and went to a favourite spot to begin at; thinking to be first on the ground, he sat on a gate close by waiting for daylight; but so far from his being the first, he found, as it got light, three other people, all waiting, like himself, to begin as soon as it was light enough, each thinking he was going to be first and have it all his own way with the cocks. Besides the gun, another mode of capturing the Woodcocks used till very lately to be, and perhaps still is, practised at Woodlands and some other places where practicable in Guernsey. Nets are set across open paths between the trees, generally Ilex, through which the Woodcocks take their flight when going out "roading," as it is called--that is, when on their evening excursion for food; into these nets the Woodcocks fly and become easy victims.