130 NATURAL HISTORY 



vation of those birds, I never could discover the least degree 

 of rivalry or hostility between the species. 



Ray remarks that birds of the gallince order, as cocks and 

 hens, partridges, and pheasants, &c. are pulveratrices, such as 

 dust themselves, using that method of cleansing their feathers, 

 and ridding themselves 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 I find myself mistaken ; for common 

 house-sparrows are great pulveratrices, being frequently seen 

 grovelling and wallowing in dusty roads ; and yet they are 

 great washers. Does not the skylark dust ? 



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 it's nest, appearing 



-in tenui re 



Majores pennas nido extendisse 



and was very fierce and .pugnacious, pursuing my finger, as I 

 teazed it, for many feet from the nest, and sparring and 

 buffetting with it's wings like a game-cock. The dupe of a 

 dam appeared at a distance, hovering about with meat in it's 

 mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude. 



In July\ saw several cuckoos skimming over a large pond; 

 and found, after some observation, that they were feeding on 

 the libellulce, or dragon-flies; some of which they caught as 

 they settled on the weeds, and some as they were on the 

 wing. Notwithstanding what Linnceus says, I cannot be 

 induced to believe that they are birds of prey. 



This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard 



