THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. | 83 
“On this day (July 14th, 1789), a woman brought me two 
eggs of a fern-owl or evening jarr, which she found on the 
verge of her Hanger, to the left of the hermitage under a 
beechen shrub. ‘This person, who lives just at the foot of the 
Hanger, seems well acquainted with these nocturnal swallows, 
and says she has often found their eggs near that place, and 
that they lay only two at a time on the bare ground. The 
eggs were oblong, dusky, and streaked somewhat in the man- 
ner of the plumage of the parent bird, and were equal in size 
at each end. The dam was sitting on the eggs when found, 
which contained the rudiments of young, and would have been 
hatched perhaps in a week. From hence we may see the time 
of their breeding, which corresponds pretty well with that of 
the swift, as does also the period of their arrival. Each species 
_is usually seen about the beginning of May. Each breeds but 
~ once in a summer; each lays only two eggs. 
“July 4th,1790. The woman who brought me two fern-owl’s 
eggs last year on July 14th, on this day produced me two more, 
one of which had been laid this morning, as appears plainly, 
because there was only one in the nest the evening before. 
They were found, as last July, on the verge of the down above 
the hermitage under a beechen shrub, on the naked ground. 
Last year those eggs were full of young, just ready to be 
hatched. 
“These circumstances point out the exact time when these 
curious nocturnal migratory birds lay their eggs and hatch 
their young. Fern-owls, like snipes, stone-curlews, and some 
other birds, make no nest. Birds that build on the ground do 
not make much of nests.”’ | 
Swallows and martins, the bulk of them I mean, have for- 
saken us sooner this year than usual; for on September 22d 
they rendezvoused in a neighbor’s walnut-tree, where it seemed 
probable they had taken up their lodging for the night. At 
the dawn of the day, which was foggy, they arose all together 
