This completes the list of the larger birds frequenting the neighbourhood. As I write this chapter, a letter from an old friend says that he well remembers the number of night-jars which were to be heard “churring” about Woodhall on a summer’s evening. This bird (caprimulgus Europœus), locally called fern-owl, comes to us about May. I have a note: “May 23rd, 1873, the first night-jar heard.” During the daytime, the visitor, walking quietly through the woodland paths near the Victoria Hotel, may, if he has a keen eye, see the night-jar lying flat upon the branch of an oak, hardly indeed perceptible, owing to its colour being so near that of the brown bark. Then, towards evening, it may be seen taking its short and wonderfully rapid flights, and you may hear its bills snap together as it catches the moths and cockchafers on which it feeds. It breeds on the moor, the nest generally being laid on the ground among the bracken; whence its name of fern-owl. The old idea of its sucking the goat or cow, from the former of which it gets its classical name caprimulgus (as well as the English equivalent), is, of course, long since exploded. {46a} The churring note is seldom heard except when it is at rest on a branch of a tree. The brilliant little Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida), the most gay in colour of all our birds, may still sometimes be seen, darting about the only rivulet which we can boast of at Woodhall, and which rejoices in the unattractive name of “The Sewer,” {46b} although its water, welling up at its source near Well Syke Wood, is beautifully clear and pure. The occurrence, however, of the bird here is rare. An old inhabitant of Kirkby assures me that it is not uncommon on the river Bain, in that parish; and of late years, partly through the writer’s influence, it may be seen on the rivers Bain or Waring, in the heart of Horncastle, unmolested, and even fed, by the people. The Grey Fly Catcher (Muscicapa Grisola) is fairly common on our lawns, where it will sit quietly on a garden seat, or roller, and thence take its short jerky flight after the flies. I have known it to nest year after year, at the Vicarage, in a hole in the wall, where an iron ventilator was broken.