The Natural History of Selborne 431 



THE SMALLEST UNCRESTED WILLOW WREN. 



THE smallest uncrested willow wren, or chiff-chaff, is the 

 next early summer bird which we have remarked ; it utters 

 two sharp piercing notes, so loud in hollow woods, as to 

 occasion an echo, and is usually first heard about the 2oth of 

 March. WHITE. 



This bird, which Mr. White calls the smallest willow wren 

 or chiff-chaff, makes its appearance very early in spring, and 

 is very common with us, but I cannot make out the three 

 different species of willow wrens which he assures us he has 

 discovered. Ever since the publication of his History of 

 Selborne I have used my utmost endeavours to discover his 

 three birds, but hitherto without success. I have frequently 

 shot the bird which " haunts only the tops of trees, and 

 makes a sibilous noise," even in the very act of uttering that 

 sibilous note, but it always proved to be the common willow 

 wren or his chiff-chaff. In short, I never could discover 

 more than one species, unless my greater petty-chaps, Sylvia 

 hortensis of Latham, is his greatest willow wren. MARKWICK. 



FERN-OWL OR GOAT-SUCKER. 



THE country people have a notion that the fern-owl, or 

 churn-owl, or eve-jarr, which they also call a puckeridge, is 

 very injurious to weanling calves, by inflicting as it strikes at 

 them, the fatal distemper known to cow-leeches by the name of 

 puckeridge. Thus does this harmless ill-fated bird fall under 

 a double imputation which it by no means deserves in Italy, 

 of sucking 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 above-mentioned is 

 occasioned by the ^Estrns bovts, 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 beast into the 

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



