OF SELBORNE 109 



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 tra- 

 vellers 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 " x 



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 ex- 

 pressing 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 

 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, 2 I cannot be induced to 

 believe that they are birds of prey. 



^Hor., Bp. I., 20, ai.] 



2 [In the Systema Natures, under Cuculus canorus, Linnaeus gives the following 

 account of its habits: "Coccyx, incubandi ipse impotens, semper parit in alienis 

 nidis, imprimis in Motacillae, majori ex parte singula ova, auferatis prioribus. 

 Educat subditum adulterate foeta nido et sequitur nutrix fidelissima mensibus 

 aestatis pulcherrimis frondescentiae, florescentiae, grossificationis, dum ille aridis 

 insidens arborum ramis famelicus semper cuculans advocat nutricem, donee sub 

 ortu caniculae ingratus earn occidat devoretque, unde orbus victitet rapina Avicularum 

 Larvisque Brassicae aliarumque; non tamen in Falconem transformatur " (i2thed. 

 (1766), vol. i., p. 168). 



" The cuckoo, being unable to sit her own eggs, always lays them in the nests 

 of other birds, especially of wagtails, for the most part one by one, after removing 

 any that were there before. The attentive foster-parent brings up the supposititious 

 chick, and waits upon it through the fairest months of summer, the seasons of 

 fresh leaves, flowers and berries. During all this time the voracious cuckoo perched 



