BIRDS. 335 



whence it is called Caprimulgus, and with us, of communi- 

 cating a deadly disorder to cattle. But the truth of the 

 matter is, the malady above-mentioned is occasioned by the 

 CEstrus lovis, 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 wormils. 



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 Scarabcei, and Phalcenw; 

 and through the month of July mostly on the Scarabceus 

 solstitialis, 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 27), showed off in 

 a very unusual and entertaining manner, by hawking 

 round and round the circumference of my great* spread- 

 ing 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 occasion 

 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 of the obtruder; 

 and by striking their wings together above their backs, in 

 the manner that the pigeons called smiters are known to 



