354 OBSERVATIONS 



the teats of goats, whence it is called caprimulgus ; 

 and with us, of communicating a deadly disorder to 

 cattle. But the truth of the matter is, the malady 

 ahovementioned is occasioned by the oestrus bovis, a 

 dipterous insect, which lays its eggs along the chines 

 of kine, where the maggots, when hatched, eat their 

 way through the hide of the heast into the flesh, and 

 grow to a very large size. I have just talked with 

 a man, who says he has more than once stripped 

 calves who have died of the puckeridge ; that the ail 

 or complaint lay along the chine, where the flesh 

 was much swelled, and filled with purulent matter. 

 Once I myself saw a large rough maggot of this sort 

 squeezed out of the back of a cow. These maggots 

 in Essex are called w r ornils. 



The least observation and attention would convince 

 men that these birds neither injure the goatherd nor 

 the grazier, but are perfectly harmless, and subsist 

 alone, being night birds, on night insects, such as 

 scarabcei, and phaltfna ; and through the month of 

 July, mostly on the scarabteus solstitialis, which, in 

 many districts, abounds at that season. Those that 

 we have opened, have always had their craws stuffed 

 with large night-moths and their eggs, and pieces of 

 chaffers ; nor does it anywise appear how they can, 

 weak and unarmed as they seem, inflict any harm 

 upon kine, unless they possess the powers of animal 

 magnetism, and can affect them by fluttering over 

 them. 



A fern-owl, this evening (August 27,) showed off 

 in a very unusual and entertaining manner, by hawk- 

 ing round and round the circumference of my great 

 spreading oak for twenty times following, keeping 

 mostly close to the grass, but occasionally glancing 

 up amidst the boughs of the tree. This amusing 

 bird was then in pursuit of a brood of some particular 

 phalance belonging to the oak, of which there are 



