the back of a cow. In Essex these maggots are 

 called wornills. 



The least observation and attention would con- 

 vince men that these birds neither injure the goat- 

 herd nor the grazier, but are perfectly harmless, and 

 subsist alone, being night birds, on night insects, 

 such as scarabcei and phalcencE ; and through the 

 month of July mostly on the Scarabcsus solst it talis, 

 which in many districts abounds at that season. 

 Those that we have opened have always had their 

 craws stuffed with large night moths and their eggs, 

 and pieces of chafers : 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 affect them by 

 fluttering over them. 



A fern-owl this evening (August 2^) showed off 

 in a very unusual and entertaining manner, by 

 hawking round and round the circumference of my 

 great spreading oak for twenty times following, 

 keeping mostly close to the grass, but occasionally 

 glancing up amidst the boughs of the tree. This 

 amusing bird was then in pursuit of a brood of some 

 particular phalcena belonging to the oak, of which 

 there are several sorts ; and exhibited on the occa- 

 sion a command of wing superior, I think, to that of 

 the swallow itself. 



When a person approaches the haunt of fern-owls 

 in an evening, they continue flying round the head 



87 



