OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 323 



says she has often found their eggs near that place, and 

 that they lay only two at a time on the bare ground. The 

 eggs were oblong, dusky, and streaked somewhat in the 

 manner of the plumage of the parent bird, and were equal 

 in size at each end. The dam was sitting on the eggs when 

 found, which contained the rudiments of young, and would 

 have been hatched, perhaps, in a week. From hence we 

 may see the time of their breeding, which corresponds pretty 

 well with the swift, as does also the period of their arrival. 

 Each species is usually seen about the beginning of May ; 

 each breeds but once in a summer ; each lays only two eggs. 



July 4, 1790. The woman who brought me two fern- 

 owl's eggs last year, on July 14, on this day produced me 

 two more, one of which had been laid this morning, as 

 appears plainly, because there was only one in the nest the 

 evening before. They were found, as last July, on the verge 

 of the Down above the Hermitage, under a beechen shrub, 

 on the naked ground. Last year, those eggs were full of 

 young, and just ready to be hatched. 



These circumstances point out the exact time when these 

 curious nocturnal migratory birds lay their eggs and hatch 

 their young.* Fern-owls, like snipes, stone-curlews, and 

 some other birds, make no nests. Birds that build on the 

 ground do not make much of nests. WHITE. 



No author that I am acquainted with has given so accu- 

 rate and pleasing an account of the manners and habits of 

 the goat- sucker as Mr. White, taken entirely from his own 

 observations. Its being a nocturnal bird, has prevented my 

 having many opportunities of observing it. I suspect that 

 it passes the day in concealment amidst the dark and shady 

 gloom of deep-wooded dells, or, as they are called here, gills*; 

 having more than once seen it roused from such solitary 

 places by my dogs, when shooting in the day-time. I have 



* The fern-owl arrives one of the last of our migratory birds, and it has been 

 known to remain in this country till late in November. I disturbed a pair of 

 these birds on a bright sunny day as they were sitting on a stunted oak tree 

 at the edge of some boggy ground in Wales. They made a short flight, and 

 appeared stupified and unconscious of any danger. It is to be regretted that 

 they should be wantonly destroyed, for they are very useful in devouring 

 numbers of chaffers. ED. 



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