334 OBSERVATIONS ON 



STONE CURLEW. 



ON the 27th of February, 1788, stone curlews were heard 

 to pipe; and on March 1st, after it was dark, some were 

 passing over the village, as might be perceived by their 

 quick short note, which they use in their nocturnal excur- 

 sions by way of watch- word, that they may not stray and 

 lose their companions. 



Thus, we see, that retire whithersoever they may in the 

 winter, they return again early in the spring, and are, as it 

 now appears, the first summer birds that come back. Per- 

 haps the mildness of the season may have quickened the 

 emigration of the curlews this year. 



They spend the day in high elevated fields and sheep- 

 walks; but seem to descend in the night to streams and 

 meadows, perhaps for water, which their upland haunts do 

 not afford them. 1 



CHIFF CHAFF. 



THE smallest uncrested willow-wren, or chiff-chaff, is the 

 next early summer bird which we have remarked ; it utters 

 two sharp piercing notes, so loud in hollow woods as to 

 occasion an echo, and is usually first heard about the 20th 

 of March. 



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, 



1 On the 31st of January, 1792, I received a bird of this species, 

 which had been recently killed by a neighbouring farmer, who said 

 that he had frequently seen it in his fields during the former part of the 

 winter : this perhaps was an occasional straggler, which, by some acci- 

 dent, was prevented from accompanying its companions in their migra- 

 tion. MARKWICK. 



