188 THE MEMOEABLE. 



I had a good view of their proceedings ; the birds were 

 continually snapping at the numerous small moths which 

 were hovering over the heaps of hay. The birds are not 

 very shy when pursuing their prey, for they would glide 

 along close by me ; amidst the gloom one could see them 

 looming in certain positions, as a ship at sea is sometimes 

 to be seen in the night-time. At times the fern-owls 

 would suddenly appear close to me, as if by magic, and 

 then shoot off', like meteors passing through the air. 



"The spectral and owl-like appearance, the noiseless, 

 wheeling flight of the birds as they darted by, would 

 almost persuade one that he was on enchanted ground. 

 Spell-bound, whilst witnessing the grotesque gambols of . 

 this singular bird, there only wanted Puck, with his elfin 

 crew, attendant fairies, &c., in connexion with the aerial 

 flights of the fern-owl, to have made it, as it was to me, a 

 tolerably complete ' Midsummer Night's Dream,' especially 

 as the fever of my night-haunted imagination had not 

 as yet vanished. As it was, I was delighted with this 

 nocturnal and beautiful scene from nature, and I wished 

 at the time that some of our museum naturalists had been 

 with me, to have shared the pleasure that I felt." * 



The entomological cabinets of Europe have long counted 

 as one of their most prized treasures, a gorgeous butterfly 

 named Ornithoptera Priamus. Linna3us named those 

 butterflies which are included by modern naturalists under 

 the family Papilionidce, Equites ; and he divided them 

 into Greeks and Trojans, naming each individual species 



* Zoologist, p. 3G50. 



