AND ROBERT MARSIIAM. 251 



of the puckeridge : that the ail, or complaint, lay along the 

 chine, where the flesh was much swelled, & filled with puru- 

 lent matter. Once myself I saw a large, rough maggot of 

 this sort squeezed out of the back of a cow. An intelligent 

 friend informs me that the disease along the chines of calves, 

 or rather the maggots that cause them, are called by the gra- 

 ziers in Cheshire worry brees, & a single one worry bree. No 

 doubt they mean a breese, or breeze, the name for the gad-fly, or 

 f/-x/ ///*, the parent of these maggots, which lays it's eggs along 

 the backs of kino. 



But to return to the fern-owl. The least attention & ob- 

 servation would convince men that these poor birds neither 

 injure the goat-herd nor the grazier; but that they are per- 

 fectly harmless, & subsist alone on night-moths & beetles ; 

 & thro' the month of July mostly on the scarabceus solstitialis, 

 the small tree-beetle, which in many districts flies and abounds 

 at that season. Those that we have opened have always had 

 their craws stuffed with large night-moths & pieces of chafers : 

 nor does it any wise appear, how they can, weak & unarmed 

 as they are, inflict any malady on kine, unless they possess 

 the powers of animal magnetism, & can affect them by flutter- 

 ing over them. Upon recollection it must have been at your 

 house that the amiable Mr. Stillingfleet kept his Calendar of 

 Flora in 1755. Similar pursuits make intimate & lasting 

 friendship. As I do not take in the R. S. T. I will with 

 pleasure accept of your present of a copy of y r Indications of 

 Spring. Hoping that your benevolence will pardon the un- 

 reasonable length of this letter, on which I look back with some 

 contrition, I remain, with true esteem, Your most humble 

 servant, 



GIL. WHITE. 



Any farther correspondence will be deemed an honour. 



