rt of
the fern owl. In the daytime, while walking across the moor, you will
every now and then put up one of these singular birds; their flight is
perfectly without noise, and seldom far at a time: but of an evening it
is far different; about twenty minutes after sunset, the whole moor is
ringing with their cry, and you see them wheeling round you in all
directions. They look like spectres; and, often coming close over you,
assume an unnatural appearance of size against a clear evening sky. I
believe its very peculiar note is uttered sitting, and never on the
wing. I have seen it on a stack of turf with its throat nearly touching
the turf, and its tail elevated, and have heard it in this situation
utter its call, which resembles the birr of the mole-cricket, an insect
very abundant in this neighbourhood. I have almost been induced to think
this noise serves as a decoy to the male mole-cricket, this being
occasionally found in the craw of these birds when shot. Those who may
not be acquainted with the cry of the bird or the insect, may imagine
the noise of an auger boring oak, or any hard wood, continued, and not
broken off, as is the noise of the auger, from the constant changing of
the hands. The eggs of the fern owl have frequently been brought me by
boys: they are only two in number, greyish white, clouded and blotched
with deeper shades of the same colour; the hen lays them on the soil,
which is either peat, or a fine soft blue sand, in which she merely
makes a slight concavity, but no nest whatever. The first cry of the
fern owl is the signal for the night-flying moths to appear on the wing,
or rather the signal for the entomologist expecting them.

The migratory periods of this bird are not well ascertained; but I have
known one shot Nov. 27th, 1821, and they had arrived April 28th, 1830.
As there is scarcely a British bird of which so little is known, the
following notes may be interesting:--It has been seen perched on the
bar of a gate, not across, but according to its length, with the tail
elevated; uttering its peculiar sounds; but when perching, as it often
does, on the summit of a twig of oaken copse, it fixes upright, with
the feet grasping the twig, and not sitting; just as the swift perches
against a wall. One was killed in broad daylight, perched on the upper
side of a sloping branch of considerable size; the head was uppermost,
and it rested on the feet and tarsi, the latter being bare on the under
surf