HARVEST AND GLEANING TIME 159 



hunt till quite late. It is a very frequent sight 

 to see heave-jars and a kestrel on the hunt for 

 chaffers at the same time ; but so very hawk- 

 like is the flight of the fern-owl, or, as it is 

 more frequently called, the heave-jar, that both 

 birds have been taken for one species. This 

 is a very natural error ; only those who have 

 watched attentively the flight of hawks could 

 tell the difference between them when on the 

 hunt in the gloaming. 



I have often listened in silence to strange 

 tales, firmly believed in by my informants, 

 about this bird ; but to me the mottled and 

 pencil-feathered bird was a fitting form to go 

 dashing like a shadow over moonlit glades, and 

 his droning song was just the sound to set you 

 dreaming over the why and the wherefore of 

 things in general, as you rested on the turf 

 under the shadow of the pines, which mur- 

 mur and whisper day and njght, let the air 

 be never so still. To my ear no sound is 

 more pleasing, when the sun dips, than the 

 hum of the pines and the Chur-ur-churr of the 

 heave-jar. 



Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick, then a 

 pause, Tick-tick, rustle-rustle-tick-tick-tick; these 

 sounds proceed from Oberon's fawn-coloured 



