CUCKOOS. 129 



Query. Might not Mahomet and his followers take 

 one method of purification from these pulveratrices ? 

 because I 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 scrupulously 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 titlark ; it was 

 become vastly too big for its nest, appearing 



" in tenui re 



Majores pennas nido exteridisse,"- 



Though by poverty depress'd, 

 Spreading its wings beyond the nest; 



and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my 

 finger, as I teased it, for many feet from the nest, 

 and sparring and buffeting with its wings like a 

 game-cock. The dupe of a dam appeared at a dis- 

 tance, hovering about with meat in its mouth, and 

 expressing the greatest solicitude. 



In July, I saw several cuckoos skimming over a 

 large pond ; and found, after some observation, that 

 they were feeding on the libellulcR, or dragon-flies, 

 some of which they caught as they settled on the 

 weeds, and some as they were on the wing. Not- 

 withstanding what Linnaeus says, I cannot be induced 

 to believe that they are birds of prey. 



This district affords some birds that are hardly 

 ever heard of at Selborne. In the first place, con- 

 siderable flocks of cross-beaks (loxice curvirostr&J 

 have appeared this summer in the pine groves be- 



