234 ON VARIOUS PARTS 



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 do, make a 

 smart snap ; perhaps at that time they 

 are jealous for their young; and their 

 noise and gesture are intended by way of 

 menace. 



Fern-owls have attachment to oaks, no 

 doubt on account of food ; for the next 

 evening we saw one again several times 

 among the boughs of the same tree ; but it 

 did not skim round its stem over the grass^ 

 as on the evening before. In May these 

 birds find the scarabceus melolontha on the 

 oak ; and the scarahceus solstitialis at mid- 

 summer. These peculiar birds can only be 

 watched and observed for two hours in the 

 twenty-four : and then in a dubious twi- 



