204 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



ever closing its bill. It is in this last circum- 

 stance that it chiefly differs from the martin, 

 the swift, and the rest of the swallow tribes ; for 

 they never open their bills, in flying, but to snap 

 at their prey, and they shut them with a sharp 

 peculiar noise, which every one must have ob- 

 served. 



There is no end to the variety of names which 

 this bird has acquired in different parts of Eng- 

 land goat-sucker goat-owl fern-owl churn- 

 owl wheel-bird dor-hawk- night-jar, &c. In 

 most of these names there is some allusion to 

 its peculiar habits, its haunts, its motions, or 

 its noises, except in the first, which is the com- 

 monest and the most absurd of all, as if a goat 

 would allow itself to be sucked by a bird ! And 

 yet, however ridiculous, my uncle shewed Fre- 

 derick, in Aristotle and Pliny, that the ancients 

 gave it a similar name. 



I understand that it is not a very common 

 bird here ; but we saw it for a considerable time 

 rapidly wheeling round and round a large oak 

 tree, and hawking among the branches in pursuit 

 of the fern-chafer, its favourite food. The hawk- 

 ing of this bird reminds me of an amusing passage 

 in the Persian Sketches : 



" At Shiraz, the Elchee (envoy) received a 

 present of a royal falcon. Before going out, we 

 had been amused at seeing our head falconer 

 put upon this bird a pair of leathers, which he 



