THE FERN-OWL.
OF the many fancy names bestowed upon this curious and interesting bird, the " Fern-Owl " seems most appropriate. Though not an owl—belonging, indeed, to an entirely different order—it has the same soft plumage, wavy silent flight, and nocturnal habits, while if ever bird was indigenous to the fern country it is surely thi s same fern-owl, or nightjar. He who would learn its strange history must seek the bird where bracken abounds, as its range is limited to such localities. In South Somerset, for instance, I have located as many as fifteen pairs in the course of an ordinary evening walk, whereas in other parts of the same county one might scour fifty square miles without finding a solitary specimen.
The peculiar appearance and ways of the nightjar must serve, one would have thought, to distinguish it from any other British bird beyond possibility of mistake. Strange to say, however, here in the West it is commonly confused with the landrail, and the country people know it by no other name. One might pause to remark that they also invariably call a heron a " crane," which, all considered, is more than curious. Admittedly, the two species might well be identical to the marvellously undis- criminating rustic eye, but, the crane being extinct as the dodo so far as our waters are concerned, one cannot imagine why the name should live to be misapplied long after its proper bearer has forsaken our pools and streams. And even less accountable is the error in the case of the nightjar and landrail, birds so dissimilar in every respect. Of course, it must be remembered that to nine people out of ten the one is but a voice, while the other, so commonly flushed from the corn, is a bird with which everybody is familiar. Yet, even so, it is scarcely conceivable that anyone who has heard the soft, whirring note of the fern- owl at dusk could believe for one second that the sound proceeded from the same throat that emits the raucous, far-sounding crake-crake, crake-crake, which night and day makes the fields ring again. Indeed, the weird vibratory refrain of the nightjar resembles no other cry of bird or beast. It is given forth regularly at sundown, continuing while the faintest glimmer of daylight remains. Unlike other twilight vocalists, however, this bird is usually silent at dawn, but it often rolls out a few bars about noon—when, incidentally, cock- pheasants crow and owls hoot from their perches. For the benefit of those not intimate with the voice, it is a peculiar humming purr, not unlike the distant throbbing of an aeroplane engine. Its eerie crescendo effect can be appreciated best when heard in some deep, far-echoing toombe where shelving banks or high trees form natural aisles for the conveyance of sound. There the listener may well be amazed at the perceptible vibration caused by the notes, which seem to come from every quarter of the compass, so that it is almost impossible to locate their source. Despite all that has been said to the contrary, personal observation has assured me that this " churring " is produced by the simplest organic process, with no more effort on the part of the bird than is exerted by r. cat when purring. It is always uttered from a perch of some kind if not from the ground, and is obviously a love-note of some sort. Presuming that it is uttered by the male, as appears to be the case, one may conclude that it corre- sponds with the drumming of a snipe or of a cock-partridge, which sometimes takes the form of a challenge. When on the wing, both birds repeatedly utter a shrill scream which may best be expressed as coo-ic, coo-ic, always two notes, which seems to represent their usual call or rally-cry. Anybody who has handled a nightjar, or had occasion to study its structure at close quarters, cannot fail to have noticed at least three very striking features. The first thing that catches one's eye is the wide, bristle- fringed gape, which is even more deeply cleft than that of the swallow. The purpose of this is, of course, apparent, as it serves not only to seize but also to retain the innumer- able insects upon which the bird feeds. Midges, cock- chafers, night-beetles, moths—no matter what—all comers fare alike, and, once within that capacious maw, small hope for any. The bird has no occasion to close its beak to secure the victim. If the stiff bristles were not in themselves sufficient to prevent escape, the gums appear to discharge a gluey secretion which envelops the insect and renders it powerless to struggle. Another peculiarity is the middle toe, furnished as it is with a long, serrated claw, something like those of the heron. Endless discussion as to the office which this is supposed to perform has failed to solve the problem satis- factorily. Some naturalists consider that it serves to strengthen the bird's grip when tackling powerful beetles or chafers, assuming that these are taken with the foot, as an owl would catch them. Others refute this theory as impossible, owing to the formation of the bird's legs, which are weak and incapable of rapid movement as the foot is of grasping, and hold that the curious claw is mainly used to assist the bird in tearing away the wing- cases and hard, shelly parts of certain insects which it cannot swallow. No doubt it serves the latter purpose at times, but in my opinion it is most useful to its owner in raking out and gathering slugs and small grass insects from the short turf, prey which requires neither energy nor strength of grip. On certain evenings, as before heavy rain, for instance, when the fern-owl is silent and, therefore, seldom observed, it may be seen hunting dili- gently close to earth, something after the manner of a swallow, but, unlike the hitter bird, frequently dropping as if to take something off the grass-blades, preying, I have little doubt, upon such small " ground game " as suggested above. Thirdly—and this is not the least remarkable thing about the construction of a very remarkable bird—the frail legs with which Nature, as if in frolic, has furnished the nightjar seem quite unable to carry their appointed weight. All other ground-breeding birds that one can think of are strong runners, but the nightjar seldom so much as stands. It is worthy of note that when -the bird alights upon a branch or a rail—the latter from preference— it does not pitch, after the ordinary manner of the feathered races, across the perch so as to secure a foothold, but longitudinally, as a grasshopper does upon a drooping scabious stalk. Also, anybody who studies it in such a position will notice that its feet do not support it, but that it rests upon its breast, using its legs just as a man might use his knees for support if stretched along the back of a horse. On the ground, it -adopts the same invariably chosen, and this is curious, for the fern-owl dislikes bright light almost as much as a bat does, and at ordinary times passes the day in the shadow of some age-old gorse-brake, or, when possible, in a dark cleft or gully overhung with fern and boulders. It requires a practised eye to detect the brooding bird. She is the closest of sitters, remaining at her post until literally trodden upon, while her soft, nondescript colouring -har- monizes SG wonderfully with the dried fronds and grasses and the brown turf that, even when aware of her exact whereabouts, the eye can scarcely pick out the motionless form. When discovered she quits with the utmost reluct- ance, and flying to the nearest vantage point, often only a few yards away, watches proceedings anxiously. I once saw a nightjar trail her wing in such a case—a trick which is peculiar to game birds as a general rule. She is said to remove her eggs or young when they have been tampered with, and though this certainly reads like a fairy-tale, I am not sure that it is entirely founded upon romance. Last summer, when walking on Haldon Hill, in Devonshire, I found two young nightjars, still unfledged, about the size of toads, which indeed they very much resembled. They had been hatched not upon the soft heather which surrounded them, but in a little bare sandy hollow, scarcely a square yard in extent, where the soil was positively burning to the touch—about the last place where one would have expected to find a nest of any sort. Glad of a chance to learn more about these interesting birds, I marked the spot carefully, and returned the following day to have another look at them. I found the little hollow without diffietilty, and there, to disprove any suspicion of mistake, were the broken shells ; but the nestlings had disappeared, nor did the closest search reveal them. There were no signs of foal play, no grue- some relics to suggest stoat or viper, the sand recorded no track of badger, fox, or prowling crow ; so I felt justified in hoping that the seemingly impossible had taken place. I had something more tangible than hope to go upon, however. One night, weeks later, when the harvest moon was full, I again passed through the same coombe, and there I saw three fern-owls, two of them obviously young' stem who were being taken upon trial flights over and around the glade. The species is rare in that district. It is scarcely likely that two pairs had bred there ; and I went away tolerably sure that I had again met my flo ugly little acquaintances. It should be remarked that the nightjar is seldom heard after July. When the little ones are hatched the ungainly attitude, nor have I ever seen it hop or run, Its sole method of progression appears to be flight, into which it slides, so far as can be seen, without the shadow of effort. And, more curious still, in motion it exhibits all the charm which when stationary it so conspicuously lacks. Upon earth it is grotesque, uncanny, repulsive; in air a poem of grace, at every turn displaying powers of evolution unrivalled by even the noblest feathered aeronauts. No words could describe the long, skimming, rippling sweep of its flight over the heath, smooth and soundless as the passing of a cloud-shadow the marvel- lous twistings and doublings, executed in pursuit of the elusive insect prey ; and, perhaps most wonderful of all, the apparently unlimited power of suspension in mid- space, maintained by a light fanning of its pinions, which for ease and endurance put all similar exhibitions on the part of the kingfisher and even the kestrel to shame. Perhaps few people will credit ma when I state that this sprite of the air actually conducts its affairs of amour upon the wing, and any pair may be seen gambolling thus for hours on end by the light of some early-rising May moon.
The nightjar is a late breeder, and makes little pretence at nest-building, the female often laying her two beautiful almond-shaped eggs on the bare ground. They are white, regularly marbled when first laid with rich plum colour. This, however, is soon rubbed =off by the wet plumage of the bird, and after a day or two of incubation the white becomes clouded and the colour fades considerably. She deposits them almost anywhere—at the foot of a bank, on the open heath, or sometimes in the soft mould at the mouth of 9 disused rabbit-hole ; but above all places she seems to prefer a warm-lying apple-tree " nursery " where dried furze, many layers thick upon the ground, forms a veritable hot-bed. An exceptionally sunny spot is almost parents become remarkably silent, and as soon as the fledglings are strong on the wing old birds and young depart for more southern lands.
DOUGLAS GORDON:
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