OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 323 



at them the 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 caprirnulgns ; and with us, of communicating a 

 deadly disorder to cattle. But the truth of the matter is, 

 the malady above-mentioned is occasioned by the cestrus 

 bovis, a dipterous insect, which lays its eggs along the chines 

 of kine, where the maggots, when hatched, eat their way 

 through the hide of the beast into the flesh, and grow to a 

 very large size. I have just talked with a man who says 

 he has more than once stripped calves who have died of the 

 puckeridge ; that the ail or complaint lay along the chine, 

 where the flesh was much swelled, and filled with purulent 

 matter. Once I myself saw a large rough maggot of this 

 sort squeezed out of the back of a cow. 



These maggots in Essex are called wornils. 



The least observation and attention would convince men, 

 that these birds neither injure the goatherd nor the grazier, 

 but are perfectly harmless, and subsist alone, being night 

 birds, on night insects, such as scarahcei and phalcencE ; and 

 tlirough the month of July mostly on the scarabceus sol- 

 stitialiSf which in many districts abounds at that season. 

 Those that we have opened have always had their craws 

 stufied with large night moths and their eggs, and pieces of 

 ch afters : 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 afiect 

 them by fluttering over them. 



* The goat-sucker, like other birds, finds insects in attendance 

 on cattle ; hence its apparent " striking at them." Magpies and 

 starlings will coolly perch on the backs of animals and leisurely make 

 their meal. 



