probable places. In fine weather, about the middle 

 of April, and just at the close of day, they begin to 

 solace themselves with a low, dull, jarring note, con- 

 tinued for a long time without interruption, and not 

 unlike the chattering of the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, 

 but more inward. 



About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, 

 as I was once an eye-witness : for a gardener at 

 a house where I was on a visit, happening to be 

 mowing, on the 6th of that month, by the side of a 

 canal, his scythe struck too deep, pared off a large 

 piece of turf, and laid open to view a curious scene 

 of domestic economy : 



" — — — — ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram : 

 Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt : 

 Apparent — — — penetralia." 



(ViRG. ^n. ii. 481-483.) 



"A yawning breach of monstrous size he made : 

 The inmost house is now to light displayed : 

 The admitted light with sudden lustre falls 

 On the long galleries and the splendid halls." 



(Dryden.) 



There were many caverns and winding passages 

 leading to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and 

 rounded, and about the size of a moderate snuff-box. 

 Within this secret nursery were deposited near a 

 hundred eggs of a dirty yellow colour, and en- 

 veloped in a tough skin, but too lately excluded to 

 contain any rudiments of young, being full of a 



viscous substance. The eggs lay but shallow, and 



132 



