HOW BIRDS BATH 113 



good shaking, flapping the wings, and scratching with 

 the feet, then carefully rearranging her ruffled plumage. 



All along a dry, sunny hedgebank one may sometimes 

 see the dusting-places of the partridges. Like phea- 

 sants and other game-fowl, they prefer dry to wet 

 shampoos. Baths they must have, and in winter they 

 will make shift with a bath in snow if no dusting-place 

 can be found after a snowstorm. 



The most elaborate toilets are made by the birds 

 which live in water. Though always swimming, the 

 ceremony of washing is a long and serious affair. 

 While floating on the water, ducks may be seen treating 

 themselves to a good shower-bath, raising the feathers 

 and splashing till thoroughly wetted, afterwards 

 coming ashore to shake their bedraggled plumage, and 

 oil and preen themselves. 



Other birds that wash go warily just to the margin 

 of a pond or stream, and, after sipping, splash the 

 water into spray with their wings, and so give them- 

 selves a gentle shower-bath. In winter as in summer 

 a bath is enjoyed, and we often see a familiar black- 

 bird, sparrow, or robin taking a bath in a puddle in the 

 garden. 



The shower-bath, deliberately taken, wets the 

 feathers much more thoroughly than would a quick 

 plunge into and out of water, such as the dive of a 

 kingfisher, or the dip of the swallow as it skims over a 

 pond's surface. We have seen a swallow dive beneath 

 the surface in its eager pursuit of an insect, but the 

 feathers would be pressed down so tightly and 

 smoothly, and so well protected by oil, that no water 

 would penetrate. 



When a bird has managed thoroughly to wet its 

 feathers, the elaborate process of preening and oiling 

 takes place a task of vital importance to the birds 



