FERN-OWL. 109 



it distinctly more than once put out its short leg 

 while on the wing, and, by a bend of the head, 

 deliver somewhat into its mouth. If it takes any 

 part of its prey with its foot, as I have now the 

 greatest reason to suppose it does these chafers, I 

 no longer wonder at the use of its middle toe, which 

 is curiously furnished with a serrated claw. 



Swallows and martins, the bulk of them, I mean, 



of the same tree ; but it did not skim round its stem over 

 the grass, as on the evening before. In May, these birds 

 find the scaralxBus melalontha on the oak, and the scarabaus 

 solstitmlis of midsummer. These peculiar birds can only be 

 watched and observed for two hours in the twenty -four, and 

 then in a dubious twilight, an hour after sunset, and an hour 

 before sunrise." 



Several species of phaltence live upon the oak ; but one, 

 the phalana viridana of Donovan's British Insects, and 

 which also appears to have been known to Mr. White, 

 does considerable damage among the young oak copses in 

 Scotland, while in the larva state. In the summer of 

 1828, and again in that of 1829, I met with this species 

 in immense profusion about Inverary, and near % Loch 

 Katrine, where many hundred acres of oak copse appeared 

 as in early spring, with the leaves much destroyed by this 

 insect. This must undoubtedly check the growth, and, 

 of course, when so extensively dispersed, be of some 

 consequence to the proprietor. Though White describes 

 it as phalfena quercus, it is undoubtedly this species which 

 he means. In his Observations, he says, " Many of our 

 oaks are naked of leaves, and even the half, in general, 

 have been ravaged by the caterpillars of a small phaltena*, 

 which is of a pale yellow colour. These insects, though 

 of a feeble race, yet, from their infinite number, are of 

 wonderful effect, being able to destroy the foliage of 

 whole forests and districts. At this season they leave 

 their animal, and issue forth in their fly state, swarm- 

 ing and covering the trees and hedges. In a field near 

 Greatham, I saw a flight of swifts busied in catching their 

 prey near the ground, and found they were hunting after these 

 phaleenfE. The aurelia of this moth is thin, and as black as 

 jet, and lies wrapped up in a leaf of the tree, which is rolled 

 round it, and secured at the ends by a web, to prevent the 

 maggot from falling out." W. J. 



