192 



BIRDS. 



though not exclusively a bird of the half light, is among 

 the least familiar of our summer visitors. During three 

 years, in a part of Kent much affected by these birds, I 

 met but one in broad daylight, and it seemed to be chasing 

 small winged insects round a quantity of dead bracken. 

 Indeed only on one other occasion have I ever seen the 

 bird abroad by day, and that was in the Bournemouth 

 Gardens, not a hundred yards from a busy street, about 

 four o'clock on a September afternoon. A singular fact 

 which I have noticed on many occasions is the frequency 

 with which one comes across a single egg of this bird (the 

 full clutch is two) in the ridings of small unfrequented 



woods. Twice in 1886, once in 1887, and once again in 

 the following year, I all but trod upon an egg in this 

 manner not a hundred yards from the house near Dart- 

 ford Heath in which I was then living, and in each case 

 the egg was right in the path, its strong resemblance to 

 the earth making recognition difficult until I was almost 



upon it. Eyewitnesses describe the bird as 

 of moths %i n & open-mouthed among the moths of the 



gloaming and catching the yellow underwings 

 in its bristled gape. This may be so ; but I have 



