File:The aquatic birds of Great Britain and Ireland (1906) (14568900519).jpg

Identifier: aquaticbirdsofgr00patt (find matches)
Title: The aquatic birds of Great Britain and Ireland
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Patten, Charles Joseph, 1870-
Subjects: Water birds Water birds
Publisher: London, R. H. Porter
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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rine and fish. Voice.—In the breeding-season, a low croak may beheard, uttered as the birds pass back and forwards to theirnesting-grounds. In autumn the immature birds utter a rather feebletu-whit, tu-whit. Nest.—At the onset of the nesting-season, the maleardently courts the female, prostrating himself before herwith lowered head and quivering plumes, and apparentlyin a state of intense excitement and amour. With his ownsex he is notoriously pugnacious, fighting seemingly asfuriously as a game-cock, yet the combatants seldom injureeach other seriously. Polygamous by nature, he tries togain the possession of several females, which, when incu-bation has commenced, he completely deserts. In fact, thefemales alone appear to construct their simple nests in tuftsof grass, in low-lying and swampy situations. The eggs,four in number, are olive, shading to greyish-buff, spottedand blotched with reddish-brown. Incubation begins aboutthe end of May. All the time that the female is hatching
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o «3 S fe VJ tl c3 M 13 fe oi o Tl r/1 iH P .0 -r) H K 0 o , • <i •3 3 3^ 2 KUFF 323 and rearing her brood her spouse is leading a bachelor lifewith other males of his own species, with which, on theleast provocation, he spars furiously. Formerly the Kuff bred in Somerset, Cambridgeshire,Huntingdonshire, Norfolk, Lincoln, and Lancashire. Ee-cently, viz., June 28th, 1889, two nests with eggs werefound in Norfolk (Gurney, Zoologist, 1889); while in 1897a nest was found near Hoveton Broad, by Mr. Marchant(Harting). Norfolk and Lincolnshire appear to have beenthe headquarters of this species ; in the latter county Mr.Gurney gives the following calculation of the number ofnests recorded during the past forty years :—1858, aboutfourteen ; 1868, about five; 1878, about two; 1888, aboutone ; 1898, no nests (A. Patterson, Zoologist, 1901, p. 103).At the present day it is a rare breeding-species in England. Geographical distribution.—Abroad, the Ruf

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