Birds. 3649 



its wide toad-like mouth, and stretching out its feet. The bird was 

 evidently in a state of great anxiety, as it ever and anon disappeared 

 amongst the dense foliage. It was no doubt using all this artifice to 

 draw me from the place. As I stood still on the spot, watching the 

 motions of the bird with no small degree of admiration, I did not at 

 first observe that I was standing upon the two young ones of the fern- 

 owl or night-jar, for that was the bird which I had disturbed. On 

 looking more closely at them, I found that I had crushed flat one of 

 the young birds, the other seemed to be unhurt. At the time when I 

 so heedlessly trod on the young fern-owls, I thought I heard a faint 

 shriek, which was probably the dying scream of the crushed bird, and, 

 if heard by the parent, would no doubt increase its anxiety for the 

 safety of its young. So very similar, too, was the dark, mottled, downy 

 appearance of the young night-jars to the variegated mossy surface on 

 which they were placed, that they might have escaped my notice had 

 I not flushed the old bird. There was not the least vestige of a nest, 

 but only a shallow depression in the moss, from the bird's close 

 sitting. 



On leaving the spot to ascertain where the old bird was, as she had 

 disappeared, I observed her at a short distance perched in an oak tree, 

 and found that her wheeling flights around the spot, combined with 

 her conspicuous owl-like appearance, had attracted a number of the 

 small birds which frequent the woods in summer, so that I was com- 

 pletely surrounded by curious, restless, weeting,* little willow-wrens, 

 and other w r arblers, which seemed to be flitting at and mobbing the 

 fern-owl, while perched in the tree, in the same way as they will often 

 serve the common owl, when seen abroad in the day-time ; and no 

 doubt they looked upon me also as an unwelcome intruder on their 

 leafy dwellings. 



At length the fern-owl flew from the tree into the thick underwood. 

 I watched the spot for some time, retiring among the shrubs in sight 

 of the place where I had left the remaining young bird, but the old one 

 did not return to her young charge, and I saw her no more. 



In about a week after this I returned to the place ; but although I 

 had previously marked my path out of the wood by breaking conspi- 

 cuous and outer branches, and notching the trees, it was some time 

 before I could find the spot, — not an easy matter, indeed, in thick 



* " Weeting," alluding to the incessant weeting or wailing note of the yellow wil- 

 low-warhler (Sylvia Trochilus), when this bird has young ones, and any one is in the 

 vicinity of its nest. 



x. 2x 



