a sensible vibration to the whole building ! This 

 bird also sometimes makes a small squeak, repeated 

 four or five times ; and I have observed that to 

 happen when the cock has been pursuing the hen 

 in a toying way through the boughs of a tree. 



After a lapse of twenty years the author adds the 

 following to his " History of the Fern-owl or Goat- 

 sucker : " — 



[The country people have a notion that the fern- 

 owl, or churn-owl, or eve-jarr, which they also call a 

 puckeridge, is very injurious to weanling calves, by 

 inflicting, as it strikes 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 caprimulgus ; 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 CEstnis bovis, a dipterous insect, which lays 

 its eggs along the chines of kine, where the mag- 

 gots, when hatched, eat their way through the hide 

 of the beast into the flesh, and grow to a very large 

 size. 1 have just talked with a man, who sa3's 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. I myself once saw 

 a large rough maggot of this sort squeezed out of 



86 



