108 FERN-OWL. 



exceeding, if possible, the various evolutions, and 

 quick turns of the swallow genus. But the cir- 

 cumstance that pleased me most was, that I saw 



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

 is very injurious to weaning calves, by inflicting, as it 

 strikes at them, a 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. The least obser- 

 vation and attention would convince men, that these birds 

 neither injure the goat-herd nor the grazier, but are per- 

 fectly harmless, and subsist alone, being night-birds, on 

 night-insects, such as scarabcei and phalcence, and through 

 the month of July on scarab feus solstitialis, which in many 

 districts abounds at that season. Those that we have 

 opened have always had their craws stuffed with large 

 night-moths and their eggs, and pieces of chafers ; nor 

 does it anywise appear how they can, weak and unarmed 

 as they seem, inflict any harm upon kine, unless they 

 possess the powers of animal magnetism, and can affect them 

 by fluttering over them. A fern-owl, this evening, (August 

 27,) showed off, in a very unusual and entertaining manner, 

 by hawking round the circumference of my great spreading 

 oak, for twenty times following, keeping mostly close to the 

 grass, but occasionally glancing up amongst the boughs of the 

 tree. This amusing bird was then in pursuit of a brood of 

 some particular phalana belonging to the oak, and exhibited 

 on the occasion a command of wing superior, I think, to the 

 swallow itself. 



" When a person approaches the haunts of fern-owls 

 in an evening, they continue flying round the head of the 

 obtruder, and by striking their wings together above their 

 backs, in the manner that pigeons called twisters are 

 known to do, make a smart swap l . Perhaps at that time 

 they are jealous for their young, and their noise and gesture 

 are intended by way of menace. Fern-owls have attach- 

 ment to oaks, no doubt on account of food ; for the next 

 evening we saw one again several times among the boughs 



1 1 believeHhis is also done by the bill, in the manner of owls when 

 disturbed. W. J. 



