The Toilet or Birds 



isolated cases. In the nightjars it is most perfect, 

 and it has been suggested that in their case it 

 is a moustache-comb ; but that explanation breaks 

 down, because some of this family, such as the 

 American nighthawk {Chordeiles popetue), have 

 no moustache to comb, unlike our bird with its 

 long, straggling bristles round the mouth. Nor are 

 the herons bristly-mouthed, and yet their comb 

 is a very good one, coming next to that of the 

 nightjars. The barn owl and its kin, also, are 

 exceptional among the owls in possessing this 

 curious implement, and in their case there seems 

 no possible reason why they alone of their family 

 should be thus gifted. But in these owls the 

 comb is still in a state of evolution, for in two 

 specimens of the Andamanese barn owl (Strix 

 deroepstorfii), which I examined, I found it was 

 not developed, and Mr. F. E. Beddard, the 

 prosector to the Zoological Society, and Dr. 

 Bowdler Sharpe of the British Museum, also 

 found it absent in the curious bay owl (PJiotodilus 

 badius) of India, each examining one specimen ; 

 the species is now known to normally possess 

 the serrated claw, so it is variable in this point. 



When once the structure exists, it is obviously 

 of more use for scratching, since the teeth will 

 serve to catch the vermin with which all birds 

 are more or less infested, and this may explain 

 its large size in the nightjars, whose tiny beak 



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