288 OWLS. 



song, and the chur of the fern-owl, or night-jar. This last 

 interesting compound of the swallow, the cuckoo, and the 

 owl ? is one of our latest spring arrivals. Its food consists 

 of the larger night-insects ; therefore, unless perched upon 

 a rotten stump, engaged in its sleepy song, it is mostly on 

 wing in pursuit of its prey. Wayward and capricious its 

 movements certainly appear to the solitary dreamer in the 

 gloaming, who sometimes wonders what the bird can mean 

 by its eccentric wheels not considering that it has to 

 follow the fickle multitude of moths and beetles. 



I have often put up the night-jar, when grouse-shooting, 

 and once discovered its pair of unfledged young close to 

 the place it rose from. It frequents rough waste ground, 

 on the borders of cultivation, and is very fond of slopes of 

 bracken hence the name of fern-owl. If found in the 

 heather, there are always copses or woods near, no doubt 

 for the supply of large night-insects they afford. When 

 routed, by daylight, from a ferny dingle or a heathery 

 brae, its flight is more like a leaf driven by the wind, than 

 the spontaneous movements of a bird. Very different is 

 its bearing in the dewy twilight of a cloudless day. It 

 will then fly round the intruder, with a threatening atti- 

 tude, often so near as almost to touch him sometimes 

 settling on the path, within a few yards of his feet. If 

 traced, by its monotonous note, to a favourite perch, upon 

 the branch of a decayed tree, it snaps its wings in taking 

 flight, like a smiter pigeon, uttering a weak plaintive 

 squeak. One that I winged, by opening its capacious 

 mouth, and hissing like a cat, had a most formidable 



