82 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 
harmless, and subsist alone, being night birds, on night insects, 
such as scarabei and phalene ; and through the month of July 
mostly on the Scarabeus 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 
eges, 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 27th) showed off in a very 
unusual and entertaining manner, by hawking round and round 
the circumference of my great spreading 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 moth 
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 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 an 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 Scarabeus melolontha on the oak, and the 
Scarabeus solstitialis at midsummer. ‘These peculiar birds can 
only be watched and observed for two hours in the twenty- 
four; and then in dubious twilight an hour after sunset and 
an hour before sunrise. 
~ elie 
