ANIMALS' TOILETTES 19 



under the water and flings it on to her back, at 

 the same time raising the feathers and letting the 

 drops thoroughly soak them. After bathing head 

 and back, she spreads her wings and tail fan-like on 

 the water, and rapidly opens and shuts them, after 

 which she stoops down and splashes the drops in every 

 direction. The bath over, she flies once more to the 

 block, and turning her back to the sun, spreads every 

 feather of the wing and tail, raises those on the body, 

 and assists the process of drying by a tremulous 

 motion imparted to every quill, looking more like an 

 old cormorant on a buoy than a peregrine. Sparrows, 

 chaffinches, robins, and, in the very early morning, 

 rooks and wood-pigeons, bathe often. One robin we 

 knew always took his bath in the falcon's bath, after 

 the hawk had finished. The unfortunate London 

 sparrow has few shallow places in which he can bathe, 

 and a pie-dish on the leads delights him. If the dish 

 be white, his grimy little body soon leaves evidence 

 that his ablutions have been genuine. 



No doubt the cats, large and small, make the 

 most careful toilette of any class of animal, with 

 the exception of some of the opossums. The lions 

 and tigers wash themselves in exactly the same 

 manner as the cat, wetting the dark, india-rubber- 

 like ball of the fore-foot and the inner toe, and 

 passing it over the face and behind the ears. The 



