98 FERN-OWL CUCKOO CROSSBILL. 



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 



Majores pennas nido extendisse, 



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 distance, 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 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 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, considerable flocks of 

 crossbeaks (loxice curvirostra) have appeared this summer in 

 the pine groves belonging to this house ;f the water-ousel is 



* The food of the cuckoo is insects and caterpillars, particularly those 

 of the lepidopterous order, both smooth and rough, as also butterflies and 

 moths themselves. Aububon says, the yellow-billed cuckoo of America 

 robs smaller birds of their eggs, which it sucks on all occasions, and that 

 the black-billed cuckoo lives on fruits, fresh water shell-fish, aquatic 

 larvae, and very young frogs ED. 



f Three species of crossbills have been identified as occasional visitants 

 of Britain, namely, the American crossbill, (curvirostra Americana,) 

 the white-winged crossbill, (curvirostra leucoptera,) and parrot-billed 

 crossbill, (c. pytiopsittacus,) a specimen of which was shot in Scotland, 

 and is in the cabinet of Sir William Jardine, Bart. In the autumn of 

 1821, a large flock of crossbills was discovered feeding in a grove of firs. 

 " After watching them for some time," says a narrator, " with a gun, I 

 procured fifteen specimens, out of which only two were in full feather, the 

 breasts and backs of the others being nearly bare. After this, they used 

 to visit the same spot pretty regularly twice a day. The males varied 

 very much in colour, some being of a deeper red, and others inclining 



