OF SELBORNE. 163 
er could discover the least degree of rivalry or hos. 
tility between the species. 
Ray remarks that birds of the galling order, as_ 
cocks and hens, partridges and pheasants, &c., are 
pulveratrices, such as dust themselves, using ‘that 
method of cleaning their feathers and ridding them- 
selves of their vermin. As far as I can observe, 
many birds that dust themselves never wash; and I 
once thought that those birds that wash themselves 
would never dust ; but here | find myself mistaken ; 
for common house-sparrows are great pulveratri- 
ces, being frequently seen grovelling and wallow- 
ing in dusty roads, and yet they are great sdaamainien 
Does not the skylark dust ? 
Query—Might not Mohammed and his ‘olicienee 
take one method of purification from these pulve- 
ratrices ? because | find, from travellers of credit, 
that if a strict Mussulman is journeying in a sandy 
desert, where no water is to be found, at stated 
hours he strips off his clothes, and most scrupu- 
lously rubs his body over with sand or dust. 
A countryman told me he had found a young 
fern-owl in the nest of a small bird on the ground, 
and that it was fed by the little bird. I went to see 
this extraordinary phenomenon, and found that it 
was a young cuckoo hatched in the nest of a tit- 
lark ; it was become vastly too big for its nest, ap- 
pearing 
“in tenui re 
Majores pennas nido extendisse,” 
and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my 
finger, as I teased it, for many feet from its nest, 
and sparring and buffeting with its wings like a 
game-cock. the dupe of a dam appearing at a dis- 
