OF NATURE. 



233 



ther injure the goatherd nor the grazier, 

 but are perfectly harmless, and subsist 

 alone, being night birds, on night insects, 

 such as scarahcei, ^nd. phalcence ; and through 

 the month of July mostly on the scarahcBus 

 solstitialisy 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 chaffers : nor does it any-wise 

 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 flutter- 

 ing over them. 



A fern-owl, this evening (August 27), 

 showed off in a very unusual and enter- 

 taining manner, by hawking round and 

 round the circumference of my great 

 spreading oak for twenty times following, 

 keeping mostly close to the grass, but oc- 

 casionally glancing up amidst the boughs 

 of the tree. This amusing bird was then 

 in pursuit of a brood of some particular 

 phalaena belonging to the oak^ of which 



